Display of advertisement – Parked vehicle – Class B of Schedule 1 to Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements)(England) Regulations 2007 – Appellant convicted of offence of displaying advertisements without consent – Advertisements attached to rear of parked vehicles when vehicles not otherwise in use for appellant’s business – Whether falling within exemption in Class B such that no consent required – Appeal dismissed
The appellant ran a tile supply business, for the purposes of which it used commercial vehicles for customer deliveries and for transporting goods and stock between its sites. When not in use the appellant occasionally parked vehicles in a location near to its showroom, on a trading estate, with an advertisement for the business attached to the rear.
The respondent council prosecuted the appellant in the magistrates’ court for an offence of displaying advertisements without consent between September and November 2008, contrary to regulations 4 and 30 of the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements)(England) Regulations 2007 and section 224 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The appellant was convicted and its appeal to the crown court was dismissed. The court held that the advertisement in question did not fall within the exemptions in Schedule 1 of the 2007 Regulations such that consent was required.
In reaching that conclusion, it considered the meaning of Class B in Schedule 1, which exempted advertisements falling within the description set out in column 1, namely an advertisement displayed on or in a vehicle normally employed as a moving vehicle, provided that it met the conditions and limitations set out column 2, such that the vehicle was not used principally for the display of advertisements. The court held that column 1 referred to a general state of affairs and covered a vehicle that was usually used as a moving vehicle by the particular user; thus the appellant’s vehicles fell within the column 1 description. However, it considered that column 2 was directed to the specific use of a vehicle at the time the offence was alleged to have been committed, and that, since the appellant’s vehicles were at that moment being used principally for the display of advertisements, they fell outside the scope of the exemption.
The appellant appealed. It contended that the use of the plural “advertisements” in column 2 indicated that it too referred to a general state of affairs.
Held: The appeal was dismissed.
In construing the Class B exemption, one of the two columns had to refer to a general state of affairs and the other to the specific moment at which the offence was alleged; otherwise, the columns would simply mirror each other in their effect and column 2 would serve no purpose. In determining their meaning, it was relevant that column 1 referred to “an advertisement” while column 2 referred to “advertisements” in the plural. Since those two provisions were closely juxtaposed, it was to be assumed that the wording used was intentional. The use of the plural in column 2 opened it up to advertisements in general and, accordingly, that column was directed to a vehicle that was principally used for advertising rather than deliveries The appellant was therefore correct in its interpretation of column 2.
However, column 1, with its use of the singular “advertisement”, referred to the particular moment at which that advertisement was being displayed on the vehicle and the use to which the vehicle was put on that occasion. If it were not being normally used as a moving vehicle at the time, the exemption would not apply. Although parking was an ordinary incident of use as a moving vehicle, to which the exemption might apply provided that the parked vehicle was not being used principally to display an advertisement, the appellant’s vehicles did not meet that test. Accordingly, the exemption did not apply and the appellant’s conviction should be upheld.
Peter Towler (instructed by Clarke Willmott LLP) appeared for the appellant; Jeremy Burns (instructed by the legal department of South Somerset District Council) appeared for the respondents.
Sally Dobson, barrister