NPAS decisions on defective Traffic Regulation Orders

The Chief adjudicator summarises many key appeal cases each year in the Annual Reports of the Tribunal,
setting out the significant issues in adjudicated cases under different categories.
The following verbatim extracts from cases reported under the TRO category in annual reports show that
precision in the drafting of TROs is essential for a council to be able to establish an alleged contravention of the
provisions of a TRO (my emphasis shown in bold below). They show that even if the intention of the draftsman
and parking policy is obvious despite erroneously-worded text, even to the extent only of poor grammar, that is
not sufficient to support an allegation of contravention. NPAS decisions consistently show that enforceability
of parking restrictions depends on the text of the articles in a TRO exactly as it is actually worded
regardless of any intention of the legislator otherwise.

Annual Report 2002-2003

1 p.43 Foreword: “A parking contravention is, in essence a contravention of a properly made TRO. . . It is one of
the main functions of the Adjudicator to establish what, if any aspect of the TRO has been contravened”
2 p.43 Case SK401: “Article 27 does not however relate to exhibiting tickets, but rather to payment of the additional
charge. I assume therefore that the legislators meant to refer to Article 25 the relevant parts . . . However, as I
have already found there has been no contravention of Article 25 . . . I do not find it to be a contravention of the
order”.
3 p.45 Case OD63: “Here the council relied on an article in the TRO which provided . . . no person shall . . . cause
or permit any vehicle to wait . . . for the purpose of loading or unloading . . . Thus vehicles were not allowed to
wait ‘ for the purpose of loading or unloading’ but could wait for other purposes. Given that the Appellant was
waiting for other purposes of loading or unloading the appeal was allowed.”
4 p.46 Case SL022: “The case concerns a change in the name of the road. Here the TRO . . . identified the street in
which the vehicle was parked by what was its former name. At some stage this had been changed. The
Adjudicator remarked that ‘It is not good enough that the Order simply refers to . . . particularly when there is no
further information as to the circumstance in which the street was renamed”.
Annual Report 2003
5 p.65 Case HE120: “The PCN was issued for parking in a parking place not designated for that class of vehicle
(a loading bay reserved for use by goods vehicles only). The TRO defined ‘goods vehicle’ as ‘a motor vehicle
which is constructed or adapted for the use for the carriage of goods or burden of any description’. . . The vehicle
was a company car. In order to carry the weight of equipment and tools it had been fitted with enhances
suspension including stronger struts. The adjudicator found as a fact that the car had been adapted for the
carriage of goods in accordance with the description of a goods vehicle set out in the TRO. Accordingly it was
entitled to use the loading bay”.
Annual Report 2004
6 p.34 Foreword: “NPAS reminds Councils that Adjudicators need to look at TROs in detail to establish whether
there has been a contravention”.
7 p.35 Case NG 162: “The Council failed to identify the precise provision of the relevant TRO upon which it
relied”.
Annual Report 2005
8 p.39 Foreword: “The following cases illustrate first, that Adjudicators routinely consider the precise terms of the
TROs relied upon by councils to support signed terms and restrictions and also the importance of accurate
drafting . . . ”
9 p.40 Case BS 1055: “The location in question was listed in the schedule but not in the article itself which,
accordingly, was inapplicable to it”.
10 p.40 Case BS 1123: “The council relied upon a restriction on waiting . . referred to in schedule 3 to the TRO.
However, the council had not identified any article from the body of the Order upon which it relied as having been
breached or indeed which referred to Schedule 3. The appeal was allowed.
11 p.41 Case HS 396: “Article 2(3) stated: ‘A vehicle left in a parking place belonging to a disabled person which
displays a disabled person’s shall be exempt . . . from payment of any charges . . .’ The adjudicator said: ‘the
grammar of this provision is unfortunate, but clearly the parking place . . cannot belong to the disabled person . . .
Thus a vehicle displaying a disabled person’s badge can park in the car park for three hours without payment of
the charge . . . If the sign in the car park suggests otherwise it is, quite simply wrong”.

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