UK Offence Report

Contravention of The Local Authorities' Traffic Orders (Procedure) (England and Wales) Regulations 1996

the instrument as a whole of The Local Authorities’ Traffic Orders (Procedure) (England and Wales) Regulations 1996

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

Contravening this instrument is an offence under sections

5 and 17(4) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. The instrument itself contains no offence-creating words.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
breaching the provision
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
Not determined

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.

Classifier’s reasoning: contravention offences of this kind are strict as to the breach; the fault position is governed by the parent Act and was not read from it.

What would breach the instrument as a whole?

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 what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Local Authorities’ Traffic Orders (Procedure) (England and Wales) Regulations 1996.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Set by another provision — the instrument states the penalty by reference to an Act or to another regulation
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

The instrument does not state a penalty itself. It sets one by reference to sections 5 and 17(4) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984.

the penalty is in the parent Act, not in this instrument.

No penalty was determined from this instrument. It may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence. Absence of a figure here is not evidence that the offence carries no penalty.

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
26 September 1996
In force from
1 December 1996
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 prescribe the procedure to be followed by local authorities in England and Wales for making the main types of traffic and parking orders under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. The Regulations replace with significant modifications the Local Authorities' Traffic Orders (Procedure) (England and Wales) Regulations 1989 and the Local Authorities' Traffic Orders (Procedure) (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 1993. The main changes are referred to below. Regulation 4 specifies the orders to which the Regulations apply. Regulations 5 to 14 lay down the procedure to be followed before making an order. The main changes in regulation 6 (consultation), which is set out in tabular form, are new requirements to consult operators of local bus services and, where applicable, London Regional Transport, and the chief officers of the NHS trust providing the local ambulance service and of the fire brigade in all cases where it appears that the order is likely to affect the passage on any road of buses, ambulances or fire-fighting vehicles. There is also a new requirement in regulation 6 to consult the Freight Transport Association and the Road Haulage Association in all cases. Regulation 7 lays down the requirements for publishing proposals. Publicity in addition to the press notice is now at the discretion of the local authority and the requirement to advertise proposals in the London Gazette has been dropped except in the case of an order under section 6 of the 1984 Act. The circumstances in which an authority must hold a public inquiry because of restrictions on loading have been modified (regulation 9) and a public inquiry need no longer be advertised in the London Gazette (regulation 10). Regulations 15 to 18 deal with the making of an order. Regulation 16 (making an order and bringing it into force) places a time limit on the making of an order of 2 years from the date on which notice of proposals was first published. Regulation 17 (action after making) drops the requirement to advertise notice of making in the London Gazette except in the case of orders orders made by a London authority under section 6 or 9 of the 1984 Act. Regulations 19 to 24 contain special provisions for certain orders. The main changes of substance concern the simplification and rationalisation of the “minor orders” class (regulation 21 and Schedule 4), of which there is now only one category in which loading bay orders, orders relating to parking places consisting of racks or stands for bicycles and orders varying the means of payment of parking charges are included, and the clarification of the procedures for experimental traffic orders which cannot now be made permanent by the shortened procedure if they have been amended more than 12 months after they were made (regulations 22 and 23). There are no changes of substance to regulation 25 (notices of variation). Schedules 1 to 3 specify the information to be contained in press notices, the documents relating to an order to be deposited for public inspection and the particulars to be included in a notice of a public inquiry. Schedule 5 lays down new requirements for information to be included in a notice of making relating to an experimental traffic order.

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 0.69.

Basis
the penalty comes from the enabling Act rather than from this instrument
Confidence
0.69 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