The legal sense of parking
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• The Transport Tribunal has dismissed an appeal by three haulage companies against the decision (CM, October 19) by the North Western Licensing Authority refusing their move of operating base from a residential area near Preston to an old railway yard at Leyland.
North Western LA Roy Hutchings had refused an application by D and A Transport to renew its licence specifying the yard at Midge Hall, Leyland, as its operating centre, and variation applications by F'. Burns (Transport), and J.T. Greenwood Transport (Longton) to specify the same centre. They wanted to move their combined operation from Longton and to specify 54 vehicles.
The LA said he refused the application because the rules governing the parking of vehicles include the movement of vehicles within the operating centre.
The legislators, the LA said, would have used another phrase if they had intended the rules to cover only the visual aspect of parking vehicles.
John Backhouse, for the three appellants, told the Tribunal that the purport of the new environmental provisions is not to provide an operating centre for each vehicle. Any vehicle must be kept somewhere, he said, and Judge Inskip, presiding, observed: "In the old provisions of operating centres, vehicles could be kept at several different places; under the new Act each place becomes an operating centre."
Bacldiouse said that the evidence was that up to 19 vehicles and 19 trailers parked at Midge Hall; no evidence had been given at the Licensing Authority hearing that the visual aspect hurt the environment. Would the grant of the application make a material change? Planning permission made it clear the whole site was listed for use by a haulage contractor in 1967.
When one said that a site has an "adverse affect on the environment" or is "unsuitable for use on environmental grounds," one must nevertheless start from the fact that anywhere is unsuitable and a balance must be kept between degree of unsuitability and the views of people living nearby. "One cannot, it seems to me, disregard the fact that planning permission has been granted" The LA, he said, had erred in refusing the licence on the evidence that parked vehicles merely stood there.
His clients, he said, had rebuilt a workshop on the site and intended to use the site as a fuelling point; these site activities would continue anyway, but mean fewer journeys in and out if the application were granted. If it were operating base the LA could impose conditic to the advantage of residents.
If improvements were made to the ha there could be no material change inviting t LA ro refuse. Although the application was 1 54 vehicles, actually 15 were currently opei ted and the three companies would like operate 30 between them.
Asked by Judge Hampden Inskip wheth he "had used this beguiling argument" to the I. of improving the environment by granting ti application for an operating base, Backhoul replied: Yes, Sir; bringing the site under ti control is desirable."
David Smith, objecting to the application fc Lancashire County Council and South Ribbl Borough Council, said the evironmental lE gislation covers a great deal more than the blc on the landscape aspect. It includes the visua aural and olfactory.
While parking in the legal sense mean leaving the vehicle and nothing more, he saic in the context of "the parking of' it indicate manoeuvring, which can have an advers effect on the environment.
An operating base is not so much a plot o land as a concept, he said. Because the LA hac not mentioned the visual intrusion of parking, i did not mean that there is no problem visually.
Smith invited the Tribunal members tc imagine on the plans and photos submitted a:. evidence, how the site would look with all thE parking bays filled.
This is not a rural area in the middle of nowhere, he said; 80 residents live nearby in a green belt village of some natural beauty.
"The LA had been lured into treating all the applications under Section 69B as next time that is how the law will look at it," said Smith. But the LA's conclusion on visual grounds was strongly worded and any increase in the number of vehicles would increase noise and fumes and prejudice substantially the enjoyment of land around the centre. There was nothing to suggest he came to the wrong conclusion; he had always kept balancing factors in mind.
As to the consideration of a restriction by fewer vehicles, the LA had been given no figure, whether 54, 10, 20, or even just three. The application had been pitched high and never came down to a more acceptable figure.
The Tribunal said that reasons given in writing for its decision would be delayed some while.