A Practical Guide to the Law of Parking in Great Britain

Few areas of law generate as much heat, and cause litigants to act as irrationally as parking. “Can I park here?” is a deceptively simple question, but it does not invite any simple answer, because it all depends upon whether “here” is a public road, a private road, a council car park, a private car park, or whether the owner of the car park is a member of relevant trade association, or an independent actor, and whether the person who wants to park is a member of the public, a tenant, or an owner of adjacent land, or whether he has business with the tenant or owner.

There is no single set of rules to which the would-be parker can conveniently look, but only a patchwork of common law principles, legislative interventions and industry practice including voluntary codes, the applicability of all of which depends not only upon territorial jurisdiction but also subject-matter context. Up until now, there has been no convenient single place in which these complex provisions are pulled together and explained in simple and approachable language.

A Practical Guide to the Law of Parking in Great Britain, for the first time ever gives clear and comprehensible guidance for all who want to know what is the answer, under the law of England, and of Scotland, to that deceptively simple question.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Iain G. Mitchell KC was called to the Scottish Bar in 1976 and took silk in 1992. He was called to the English Bar in 2012. He has an extensive practice covering most areas of civil law, being recommended in Chambers Directory for Commercial Dispute Resolution, Intellectual Property and IT Law.

He is also heavily involved in several areas of land law, having represented the successful parties in the House of Lords case of Moncreiff v Jamieson, which was the case which established the existence of the servitude or easement of parking in both Scots and English law as well as a number of the cases which have followed on.

He is a member of Arnot Manderson Advocates in Edinburgh and of Tanfield Chambers in London.

CONTENTS

Chapter One – Public Parking
Chapter Two – Private Car Parks
Chapter Three – Private Parking Rights: The Servitude of Parking
Chapter Four – Servitudes and Real Burdens in Scotland in Terms of the Title Conditions (Scotland) Act 2003
Chapter Five – Parking Under Leases and Other Rights
Chapter Six – The Exercise of the Private Parking Rights
Chapter Seven – Afterword