R Alexis Alexander v The Parking Adjudicator The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (Interested Party)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | H.H.J. Keyser |
| Judgment Date | 07 March 2014 |
| Neutral Citation | [2014] EWHC 560 (Admin) |
| Docket Number | Case No: CO/2890/2013 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Date | 07 March 2014 |
and
[2014] EWHC 560 (Admin)
His Honour Judge Keyser QC
Sitting as a Judge of the High Court
Case No: CO/2890/2013
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
The Claimant appeared in person
Celina Colquhoun (instructed by LB Hammersmith Legal Dept.) for the Interested Party
The Defendant did not appear
Hearing dates: 26 February 2014
H.H.J. Keyser QC:
Introduction
This case relates to a challenge by the claimant motorist, Mr Alexander, to a penalty charge notice that was served upon him for performing a prohibited U-turn on Gliddon Road, London W14, on 18 March 2012.
More precisely, the case involves a challenge to the decision of Parking Adjudicator Andrew Harman on 13 December 2012 upholding the decision of Parking Adjudicator Anthony Chan on 15 October 2012 to dismiss the claimant's appeal against the penalty charge.
The challenge is brought pursuant to permission to apply for judicial review granted on 5 July 2013 by Mr Michael Fordham Q.C. sitting as a deputy High Court judge.
The issue in the case is a point of law: whether the combination of Article 3 of the Hammersmith and Fulham (Gliddon Road) (Banned U Turn) Order 2011 ("the Order") and the familiar "No U-turn" traffic sign made unlawful the manoeuvre performed by the claimant, which was what is generally known as a 3-point turn.
At the hearing of the claim, the claimant represented himself with (if I may say so) intelligence and courtesy. The defendant, named as the decision-maker of Parking and Traffic Appeals Service, an independent tribunal, took no part. I am grateful to Ms Colquhoun for her written and oral submissions on behalf of the interested party, the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham ("the Council").
The Order
The Order was made on 3 August 2011 under powers conferred by the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 ("the 1984 Act") and came into effect on 15 August 2011.
Article 3 of the Order reads as follows:
"No person causing or permitting any vehicle to proceed in those lengths of Edith Road or Gliddon Road that lie between the common boundary of Nos. 21 and 23 Edith Road and the northern kerb-line of Talgarth Road shall cause or permit that vehicle to turn at any point in those lengths of roads so as to face in the opposite direction to that in which it was proceeding."
Article 2 (2) of the Order provided:
"The reference in Article 3 of this Order to lengths of Edith Road or Gliddon Road shall be construed as a reference to the whole width of those lengths of roads, including the carriageway, the footway and the footway crossovers leading to or from premises adjacent to those lengths of road."
It is relevant to note the mischief against which the Order was directed. Vehicles approaching the junction of Talgarth Road and Gliddon Road along Talgarth Road from the west are prohibited from making a right-hand turn so as to proceed southwards along the southern part of Gliddon Road. Many motorists, among them the claimant, got round this inconvenience by the simple device of turning left at the junction, onto the northbound lane of Gliddon Road, and then turning the vehicle around in the road by means of a manoeuvre that may or may not (and this comes near the heart of the matter) properly be called a U-turn. In a report dated 9 January 2012 to the cabinet of the Council in connection with proposed modernisation of CCTV traffic enforcement facilities, the problem was described in the following terms:
"A large number of drivers travelling eastbound on Talgarth Road were turning left into Gliddon Road then carrying out a U-turn in order to travel southward towards Barons Court. At peak times, around one hundred drivers were carrying out this manoeuvre in one hour, resulting in conflicts with oncoming vehicles and raising safety concerns for users of the footway."
The facts
The manoeuvre performed by the claimant at 4.21 pm on 18 March 2012 is shown on film taken by the interested party's CCTV cameras and on stills taken from that film. From Talgarth Road the claimant turned left into Gliddon Road, so that he was travelling in a northbound direction. He then slowed down and turned his vehicle to the right, across the southbound traffic, and mounted the paved area (a footway crossover on the pavement) before the entry to a gated block of flats. Then he stopped the vehicle and reversed into the path of the southbound traffic. He then moved forward, joining the line of the southbound traffic. I ought to remark that it is not suggested that there was anything dangerous about the way in which the claimant performed the manoeuvre.
The manoeuvre took place on the length of Gliddon Road mentioned in Article 3 of the Order. It also took place entirely on the public highway, because the pavement and the footway crossover are part of the highway and are part of the whole width of the length of road by reason of Article 2 (2). Subject only to the question whether the manoeuvre was a U-turn, it was precisely the manoeuvre described in the report to cabinet mentioned at paragraph 9 above. It is also common ground that the manoeuvre fell within the terms of the prohibition in Article 3 of the Order.
On 29 March 2012 the Council issued the claimant with a penalty charge notice ("PCN") in respect of the manoeuvre. The PCN identified the alleged traffic contravention as follows: "Performing a prohibited turn — no U turn". The claimant wrote to the Council, making representations against the PCN, but the defendant maintained the penalty.
The defendant's decisions: appeal and review
The claimant appealed against liability for the payment of the penalty charge in the PCN. The appeal was heard by the adjudicator, Mr Chan, who on 15 October 2012 refused the appeal. The arguments raised by the claimant appear from the adjudicator's decision, which may be summarised as follows:
i) The claimant complained that he and others had been performing this manoeuvre for several years and that proper warning should have been given of the introduction of any prohibition. The adjudicator noted that the interested party said that it had given warning of the changes, but he pointed out that warnings of impending changes were not a legal requirement and that this argument would not avail the claimant even if no warnings had been given.
ii) The claimant said that the only relevant street signs that might indicate a prohibition of the manoeuvre were "No U-turn" signs; he, however, had not performed a U-turn, because he had not performed a continuous sweeping manoeuvre but rather a 3-point turn, in which he had driven across the road, reversed and then moved forward again. A U-turn was quite different, in that it did not involve the need to stop or to reverse. The adjudicator made two points about this: first, the Order described the prohibited manoeuvre in terms that were wide enough to include the 3-point turn performed by the claimant; second, the decision of the Parking and Traffic Appeals Service's Panel in London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham v Azadegan (13 July 2011) confirmed that the "No U-turn" sign prohibited the manoeuvre that the claimant had performed.
iii) The claimant said that he had not seen and had not been able to see the "No U-turn" signs. The adjudicator observed that there were two such relevant signs. One was on the very corner around which the claimant was turning left; this one, he accepted, might not be seen by a motorist performing that turn. The other, however, was across the road, on the pavement of the southbound carriageway, and drivers should not have undue difficulty seeing that sign.
The claimant applied for a review of Mr Chan's decision. The application was heard by Mr Harman, who refused it on 13 December 2012. The relevant part of his statement of reasons was in the following terms:
"The appellant summarised the grounds upon which he sought to make the application, all of which appeared to arise from issues concerning signage and the definition of 'u-turn'. I considered what the appellant said but I was satisfied that in seeking to review the decision made he was contesting the findings of fact made by the adjudicator. That is not in itself a ground for review. I was satisfied that the adjudicator was entitled to reach the decision he did on the basis of the evidence before him. There was no ground under the Regulations on which that decision, with which, in any event, I agreed, may be disturbed. The application was refused."
Penalty charge notices and traffic adjudicators: the relevant legal framework
The Council's authority for issuing the penalty charge notice against the claimant for breach of the Order was conferred by section 4 of the London Local Authorities and Transport for London Act 2003 ("the 2003 Act").
The procedure for challenging a penalty charge notice is set out in Schedule 1 to the 2003 Act. Paragraph 1 provides that the recipient of the notice may make representations to the authority that issued it (the enforcing authority, in this case the Council) on specified grounds, which are set out in paragraph 1 (4) and include:
"(b) that there was no—
(i) contravention of a prescribed order; or
(ii) failure to comply with an indication; or
(iii) contravention of the lorry ban order, under subsection ( 5) or (7) of the said section 4 as the case may be".
Paragraph 2...
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