UK Offence Report

Contravention of Regulations

regulation 26 of The Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) Regulations 1989

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

26 A person displaying an advertisement in contravention of these Regulations shall be liable on summary conviction of an offence under section 109(2) of the Act to

a fine of an amount not exceeding level

3 on the standard scale and, in the case of

a continuing offence, £40 for each day during which the offence continues after conviction.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a person
Conduct
contravening a requirement of the instrument
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

What would breach regulation 26?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) Regulations 1989, whatever the reason for doing it.
  2. Where the requirement is a positive duty, letting the time for performing it pass without performing it.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
£400
Standard scale
Level 3
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

this is the level 3 value when the instrument came into force (1989-05-22); the standard scale is keyed to the date the offence was committed, and for conduct today the same words mean £1000.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Status not determined
Made
13 April 1989
In force from
22 May 1989
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations consolidate with amendments the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) Regulations 1984 and subsequent amending instruments. The main provisions of the Regulations, which apply in England and Wales, concern the control by local planning authorities of the display of outdoor advertisements. Specified classes of advertisements are excluded from the Regulations and others may be displayed with deemed consent, subject to conditions and limitations and the power of local planning authorities to serve discontinuance notices (Part II). Applications to the local planning authority for express consent and the granting of consent subject to conditions are provided for, as are appeals to the Secretary of State where consent is refused or granted conditionally, and the revocation or modification of express consent (Part III). Part IV deals with the designation of areas of special control and Parts I and V with general and miscellaneous provisions. The main changes made by the Regulations are– a modification of the powers of the Secretary of State in directing that, in a specified case or class of case, advertisements should not be displayed without express consent (regulation 7); b revision of the criteria on which a local planning authority may serve a discontinuance notice withdrawing deemed consent under Schedule 3 (regulation 8); c clarification of the powers of a local planning authority to grant consent for part only of an application, with or without conditions (regulation 13); d the introduction of two new classes of illuminated advertisement with deemed consent (Classes 4A and 4B in Schedule 3); e other minor modifications to the Classes of advertisement with deemed consent (regulation 6 and Schedule 3); f introduction of a power for an objection to an area of special control order to be dealt with by written representations, instead of a hearing, if the parties agree (Schedule 5, paragraph 5).

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.72.

Basis
the provision states liability on summary conviction
Confidence
0.72 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source