Applicant applying for vehicle crossing outside house – Crossing to facilitate off-street parking – Respondents finding adverse effect on operation of controlled parking zone and refusing request – Whether respondents entitled to consider effect on controlled parking zone – Sections 184(5) and (11) of Highways Act 1980 – Application dismissed
The applicant owned and occupied a house within Kensington and Chelsea Royal London Borough. Residents’ parking was a problem, and for some years all public highways in the area had been within a controlled parking zone (CPZ). The applicant applied to the respondent highway authority under section 184(11) of the Highways Act 1980, requesting that they construct a vehicle crossing over the footway outside his house to enable him to avail himself of off-street parking. The respondents’ planning services committee refused the request on the ground that such a crossing would result in the loss of approximately 6m of on-street kerbside parking, and that this would have an adverse effect on the operation of the CPZ.
The applicant applied for judicial review of the respondents’ refusal. First, it was submitted that the respondents had regard to, and in fact made their decision on the basis of an irrelevant consideration, namely, the adverse effect upon the operation of the CPZ. It was submitted that, when considering a request under section 184(11), the respondents could only lawfully have regard to matters set out in section 184(5) of the Act because the current provisions defined and exclusively limited the matters to which an authority was required to have regard. The applicant claimed that, as the implications for the CPZ were not one of those matters, they should not have been considered at all, except, possibly, to the extent that any adverse effect upon the CPZ overlapped with the matters set out in section 184(5). Secondly, the applicant submitted that the respondents’ decision was Wednesbury unreasonable.
Held: The application was dismissed.
Upon a true construction of section 184(11), it was permissible for the respondents to reject the applicant’s request and, in doing so, to have regard to the implications for the CPZ. The language of sections 184(11) and 184(5) did not prohibit the respondents from having regard to matters other than those specified in section 184(5). Such a construction was consistent with the legislative history of the statutory provisions as well as their wording. There was an abundance of evidence pointing to the conclusion that the respondents’ refusal was in no sense irrational. It had not been established that the respondents were operating an inflexible policy. Their decision was not Wednesbury unreasonable.
Anthony Dinkin QC (instructed by Stone King, of Bath) appeared for the applicant; Peter Harrison (instructed by the solicitor to Kensington and Chelsea Royal London Borough Council) appeared for the respondents.
Sarah Addenbrooke, barrister
