Confused advertisement consent order

The request was partially successful.

Dear Barrow in Furness Borough Council,

Your response to another Information Request shows that on 3rd February 2015 Barrow Council issued to ParkingEye Ltd a Notice of Consent to display their parking sign advertisements at the Range car park in Barrow (Application B22/2014/0812). The final page lists several “Important Notes”

Re- IMPORTANT NOTE 2. This first makes clear that the maximum period for which consent has been granted is five years and, secondly, that that period of consent commenced on 3rd February 2015. This explicitly shows that no consent has been granted for the display of ParkingEye’s signs during any time prior to 3rd February 2015.

Please confirm the Council’s information that the Council has not granted consent to display ParkingEye’s sign advertisement for any period prior to 3rd February 2015 and the Council’s awareness of ParkingEye’s criminal conduct during that period.

Re- The title of the PROPOSAL, as stated on all the prior pages. It reads:

“Advertisement Consent to display 25 non illuminated signs within the retail car park (Retrospective)”. This is a total contradiction of your Important Note 2.

The term “Retrospective” means and can ONLY mean what dictionaries define it as meaning. “Retrospective”, in the context of law and otherwise, is defined variously as meaning:

“having effect not only henceforth into the future but also as of a time prior to the date of a relevant law coming into force or of any other event in question”.

The term “retrospective” has no other defined meaning or application. Therefore your description of the Proposal is materially wrong and fatal to the validity of a legal notice. Neither the proposal nor your consent can possibly have effect prior to 3rd February 2015. All legislation relating to the display of advertisements appears to show that, in distinct contrast to planning permission for developments, it is impossible for a planning authority to grant consent to display advertisements retrospectively to have effect prior to the date of consent.

Please provide any information that you hold which authorises Barrow Council lawfully to grant a consent to display advertisements that has consent effect retrospectively prior to the date of consent. In the event that you hold no such information the Information regulations require you to say so.

(If you do not hold such authorising evidence it will be inescapably necessary to rescind the Consent Notice of 3rd February 2015 for contradiction and impossibility; any future superseding consent must, of course, make no erroneous reference to retrospection).

Re- IMPORTANT NOTE 3. The relevant regulations to which you refer prohibit the display of relevant advertisements prior to a grant of consent. You made clear in Note 3 the Council’s awareness that it will be a penalisable criminal offence on the part of ParkingEye if their two signs adjacent to the Abbey Road entrance remain after 56 days.

However, Barrow Council was aware for a very long period of time before 3rd February 2015 that Parking Eye was committing a criminal offence of displaying all of their 25 sign advertisements without consent but permitted them to continue without taking any enforcement action to stop it.

Please provide the information that led the Council to permit all of these signs to remain unnecessarily in place for this long period contrary to the legislation and thereby knowingly enabled ParkingEye to continue their preventable criminal conduct.

Yours faithfully,

Duncan McKenzie

Freedom of Information, Barrow in Furness Borough Council

Dear Sir/Madam

ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION REGULATIONS 2004 – INFORMATION REQUEST

Your request for information has now been considered under the Environmental Information Regulations and the information that you requested and is held by the Council is below.

I can confirm that the Council holds some of the information you requested but does not hold all of it. Where we are not able to provide the information we are applying regulation 12(4)(a) .

1. The Council does not hold any information recording that the Council has granted consent to display Parking Eye’s sign advertisement for any period prior to 3rd February 2015. The Council may only grant consent from the date of the decision.

2. The Council has recorded a complaint made 21st August 2014 pertaining to alleged unauthorised anpr cameras and a series of signs erected at The Range. CMP/2014/0077. This file was closed 1st Dec 2014 following receipt of the applications.

The Council has recorded an extract from the Government’s guidance entitled “Outdoor advertisements and Signs: A guide for Advertisers” (June 2007) (https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio...) and Planning Practice Guidance: Requirements for Consent (http://planningguidance.communities.gov.... always-required-to-display-advertisements/) :
“Anyone who displays an advertisement, or uses an advertisement site, or knowingly permits someone else to do so, without the consent required for it, is acting illegally.”

3. The Council does not hold any information pertaining to this part of your request.

4. Enforcement is discretionary. The Government’s guidance entitled “Outdoor advertisements and Signs: A guide for Advertisers: Illegal Advertisements (page 29) states: -
“….It is then immediately open to the planning authority to bring a prosecution in the Magistrates’ Court for an offence under section 224 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. But, unless an offence is especially flagrant or repeated, the planning authority may not initially consider it necessary to prosecute for an advertisement offence. Instead, they may invite the advertiser to apply for the consent they believe he needs, and, if consent is refused, there will be a right of appeal to the Secretary of State.

It is recorded that:
“Officers came to the view that the breach of planning control was not sufficiently detrimental to warrant refusal and could be regularised in the way suggested in the guide for advertisers”

The Town and Country Planning Act 1990 which sets down the power S220 for the Secretary of State to set out regulations restricting the display of adverts. The Regulations permitted under the Act were last published in 2007. The Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements)(England) Regulations 2007.

Section 3(1) is very clear in that the powers set out in the Regulations can only be exercised in the interests of amenity and public safety. The Regulations then go on to set out the factors to be taken into account for both issues. Whilst it is clear, the list is not exhaustive and can take into account “any other relevant factors” this is only so far as they relate to amenity and public safety. S3(4) goes on to say “unless it appears to the local planning authority to be required in the interest of amenity or public safety, an express consent for the display of advertisements shall not contain any limitation or restriction relating to the subject matter, content or design of what is to be displayed.

Therefore in arriving at a decision not to pursue prosecution, Officers could only take into account public safety and amenity. The purpose of the signs was not a consideration, nor was the content. This is recorded in the committee report which can be seen on the Council website at;
http://www.barrowbc.gov.uk/planning/deve...
Use the following reference numbers;

B22/2014/0812
B18/2014/0813.

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If you have any queries, concerns or if you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request please contact me as above. If the complaint still cannot be resolved you may contact the Council’s Corporate Services Manager at the address given above.

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Yours faithfully

Karen Singleton
Freedom of Information

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