UK Offence Report

Contravention of Regulations

regulation 27 of The Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) Regulations 1992

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

27 A person displaying an advertisement in contravention of these Regulations shall be liable on summary conviction of an offence under section 224(3) 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, one-tenth of level

3 on the standard scale 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 27?

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 1992, 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 (1992-04-06); 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
11 March 1992
In force from
6 April 1992
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 revoke and replace with amendments the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) Regulations 1989 and two amending instruments. The main provisions of the Regulations, which apply to England and Wales, concern the control by local planning authorities of the display of outdoor advertisements. Subject to the exclusion of memorials and railway signals, the term “advertisement” has the meaning given by section 336(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, as amended by section 24 of the Planning and Compensation Act 1991 (“the 1991 Act”). The main change is that an awning or blind used wholly or partly for advertising purposes is now included in the definition. Part II of the Regulations provides for specified classes of advertisements to be displayed with deemed consent, subject to stated conditions and limitations and to the power of the local planning authority to serve discontinuance notices. Part III provides for applications for express consent to be made to the local planning authority, with a right of appeal to the Secretary of State where consent is refused or granted conditionally, or where the local planning authority fail to determine the application as required by the Regulations. Also included in Part III is provision for appeals to the Secretary of State in respect of discontinuance notices, and for the revocation or modification of express consent. The advertisements mentioned in regulation 3(2) are excluded from Parts II and III. Part IV deals with areas of special control, and Parts I and V with general and miscellaneous provisions. The main changes made by the Regulations are consequential upon provisions in the 1991 Act: a all applications for express consent are now to be made to the authority to whom it falls to determine them (regulation 9(1)); b the power given to the local planning authority to decline to determine a planning application which is the same, or substantially the same, as one dismissed by the Secretary of State on appeal within the previous two years, is applied to applications for express consent (regulation 13(1)(c) and Part I of Schedule 4); and c the power given to the Secretary of State to dismiss planning appeals where there is undue delay in their progress is applied to appeals in respect of applications for express consent (regulation 15(1) and Part III of Schedule 4); and to appeals in respect of discontinuance notices (regulation 15(3) and Part V of that Schedule). There are also minor and drafting amendments.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

What Parliament said

Mentions of this instrument in Hansard. Parliamentary material is reused under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.

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