HC Deb 27 February 1956 vol 549 cc973-82

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Studholme.]

10.22 p.m.

Major Sir Frank Markham (Buckingham)

It is rare in this House, Mr. Speaker, that an hon. Member is asked to give an encore and I feel very privileged tonight to be one of the few who can claim that honour. I hope you, Sir, will not invoke the rules relating to "vain repetition" against me if I proceed to summarise what I said a little earlier this evening.

As I was saying, when I obtained the permission of Mr. Speaker, last week, to raise the question of parking restrictions in rural areas, I thought, naturally, that it would be answered by the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation. I was surprised to discover, therefore, that the burden of reply was placed upon the Home Office. However. I appreciate the courtesy of the Under-Secretary in coming here tonight to hear the points I shall put forward, and I hope that if I go beyond the boundaries of his responsibilities, he will not hesitate to help me to draw the attention of the Minister of Transport to them in the future.

While we all want safety on the roads and a free flow of traffic on those roads, equally we all want the minimum of harrying of motorists or lorry drivers by the police, and we all welcome the developments that have taken place recently in London and Slough under which parking has been made much easier for the average motorist or lorry driver by the co-operation of the police. Unfortunately, this tendency shows a complete negative in certain country districts where, instead of parking facilities being increased by co-operation between the local authorities, the Ministry of Transport and the police, the reverse has been happening.

I think that part of this trouble may be due to the fact that in various Ministries the definition of "road" varies exceedingly. While one Ministry defines a road as a highway over a certain width with a metalled or made-up surface on which to travel, another defines it as being the whole of any public highway stretching from hedge to hedge or ditch to ditch. The latter is the definition which, I believe, has been accepted by the police authorities in Buckinghamshire and many other counties.

If the latter definition be accepted, it includes not only the road proper, but also verges—which may be of very great width—village greens, market squares, and some common lands. Indeed, there have been cases within recent memory where the forecourts of old-established inns have been described as the public highway and have, in consequence, come under the parking restrictions recently imposed with the approval of the police.

The first thing that should happen is that the Home Office, the Minister, of Transport and the police authorities throughout the country should agree on a definition of "road" or "highway'' and make it clear, once and for all, that the regulations which are alleged to apply to parking on roads should not apply to parking on village greens, market squares, extremely wide verges or. indeed, other traditional parking spots throughout the country.

I now want to turn to a case to which I have drawn the attention of the Minister. This relates to difficulties which have arisen in the market town of Stony Stratford, in Buckinghamshire. As long ago as 1257 the Earl of Oxford, who was Lord of the Manor, laid out a market square, and from that day until a few months ago it has been freely used for the parking of vehicles of all kinds. It was used extensively during the Napoleonic wars and the Crimean War to rest teams moving the guns from the great manufacturing centres to the forts and ports in the South, and during the last war it was used for parking some of the heaviest tanks this country has ever made. It is essentially a safe parking place, and it is a well-known one.

Until 1931, the market square was looked after by a very ancient charity, the Bridge and Street Commissioners. This charity, owing to the declining level of the purchasing power of its funds, felt no longer able to carry on looking after the market square and handed it over to the urban district council on the condition—among others—that there should be free parking for private vehicles for ever.

One would have thought that the market square was an area where no possibility of a public controversy could ever have arisen and where no possibility could ever have been foreseen of the urban district council taking one point of view and the chamber of commerce another, with the police sandwiched in between trying to do their duty in face of a rising crescendo of public apprehension.

Last September, the urban district council sought to make byelaws regulating the parking in the square. These, after a public inquiry, were disallowed by the Ministry of Transport. I shall not go fully into the whys or wherefores of either the byelaws or their disallowance. I will only say that questions like these should be left to the local authority, the police and the Ministry of Transport, without the intervention of this House, and that this House should only intervene when there is a deadlock causing grave public disquiet.

Unfortunately, the public inquiry was not the end of the affair. On or about 9th December, the Chief Constable of Buckinghamshire sent a letter to all local authorities, which, on the surface, was a most helpful letter, asking their co-operation in preventing the parking of vehicles in what one might call unlicensed parking areas. As a result of this, the Wolverton Urban District Council, or its officers, using this letter as a base, then sought the co-operation of the police in warning off every vehicle over a certain size parked in that square, indeed, in warning every vehicle driver parked there that the vehicle could not be parked without lights on after lighting up time.

All this happened surreptitiously, without any public notification of the changed status of the square. During the course of a few weeks, I believe that no fewer than a hundred motorists had little notes stuck under their windscreen wipers warning them that if they parked there again without lights they would be liable to prosecution. More than a hundred letters were sent by the clerk to the council or by the police to firms up and down the country warning them of what might happen if they continued to use the square as a parking place. To add to this confusion, the correspondence between officers of the council and the chief constable or other police officers was never produced before the full council and neither the full council nor the public were ever given any indication of the background influences bewildering the whole topic of the market square.

On 22nd February I asked Questions in the House. Again, I thought they would be answered by the Minister of Transport, so I was surprised when I found that some of them were being answered by the Home Office. The burden of the answers to these Questions was that the Minister of Transport could take no direct action relating to Stony Stratford but new regulations were being prepared by him. The Minister's exact words were: I intend shortly to make regulations which will enable vehicles outside the London area to be parked without lights if and where the chief officer of police consents to it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd February, 1956; Vol. 549, c. 43.] It is quite clear from that Answer that the Minister has in view not only the highway, but places on and off the highway. This will raise everywhere, with a vengeance, the Stony Stratford question and the police interpretation of the highway as from hedge to hedge. The Minister has made it clear that when he uses the phrase, "on or off the highway", he is thinking of the same thing. By inference, we have the situation that in future no parking without lights will be allowed on any village green, in the forecourts of local public houses, on any wide verge, or in any market square, unless, first, the police and local authorities have made a careful inspection of the place and have reported to the Minister of Transport.

There may well be a public inquiry; posts will have to be erected to mark limitation and there may be white lines all over the auction. All this will be a waste of public money, public time and particularly the time of the police in upsetting something which is now working quite well without all this officialdom and bureaucracy.

Therefore, tonight I ask that the Minister will use his influence in unravelling this Stony Stratford problem and see to it that in any new regulations additional and troublesome burdens are not placed on the police, and that there will be no undue harrying of the motorist by the police with regard to what one might call the traditional parking places in villages and market squares throughout the land. I ask him, also, to see when there is a change in these traditional parking places there is reasonable public notice of such change before the police start sticking notices on cars and warning offending motorists that they will be prosecuted. It is grossly unfair that laws and regulations should be changed surreptitiously without anyone knowing about it, without public notification, and that motorists and lorry drivers should be ordered to move on.

Everything depends on these new regulations. I ask the Minister—and again I should like to say how much I appreciate him coining here this evening—to use his influence to see that the new regulations do not create a vast new series of motoring offences throughout the land by changing existing parking rights which have grown up over the years. I wish to see our police forces used not for the purpose of badgering motorists and lorry drivers and ordering them off market squares and other places to sites which may be ten, twenty or thirty miles away, but for their proper function of detecting and preventing crime. I am sure that this House hopes that the Minister will see that these things are done.

10.36 p.m.

Mr. Eric Fletcher (Islington, East)

The hon. and gallant Member for Buckingham (Sir F. Markham) has raised a matter of general interest throughout the country. I am particularly concerned with the suburban areas of London where the parking question is becoming increasingly acute, particularly night parking. In the last two or three years it has become a commonplace to find in practically every street in my constituency numbers of cars parked outside houses night after night.

It is a matter of some annoyance to the residents to find other people's cars parked outside their houses night after night, and it is a matter of concern to motorists because there are far too few garages available. I hope that the police will not harry and obstruct motorists and make them put their cars in garages which might be a couple of miles away. On the other hand, motorists must recognise that in some streets, particularly narrow streets, it is objectionable to have a number of cars obstructing the highway.

This is a real problem, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will say something about the attitude of the Home Office in general and that he will note the desire for an increase in the amount of garage space.

10.38 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. W. F. Deedes)

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Buckingham (Sir F. Markham) was puzzled to find me at this Box and not my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation. It would probably save some misunderstanding if I explain at once why I am here. It is to answer him on behalf of my right hon. and gallant Friend on the specific matter of my right hon. and gallant Friend's decision not to confirm the byelaws made by the Wolverton Urban District Council for the regulation of a parking place in the market square, Stony Stratford. As my hon. and gallant Friend may be aware, that is the specific responsibility for which I am now answerable.

I shall have to steer rather a delicate course, beaause I think it would be unwise to be tempted into the wider questions which have been sought by my hon. and gallant Friend and by the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) on highways and parking facilities, and certainly into the making of a unilateral statement on a matter which, as both hon. Gentlemen are aware, concerns the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation as least as much. I must, also, be careful, because my hon. and gallant Friend mentioned the police in connection with the restriction of parking facilities.

I must say at once that my right hon. and gallant Friend is not answerable in this House for the actions of the police outside London, nor can he discuss them. In fact, I should be out of order were I to attempt to reply to my hon. and gallant Friend. Therefore, the best service I can render is to give, as fully and as fairly as I can, the considerations which have arisen in this matter of the market square at Stony Stratford, not by any means an easy issue and one on which I can readily understand strong feelings have been stirred on both sides. It bears on the general problem of parking on village greens and market squares, but there are aspects of it which are peculiar to Stony Stratford and about which I want to say a word.

The effect of the byelaws which the local authority, the Wolverton Urban District Council, under which Stony Stratford comes, wanted to make would have been threefold: to limit parking in the market square to two specified areas; to prohibit the parking of lorries there to over 2½ tons unladen weight; and to restrict the parking there of any other vehicles for more than two hours at any time.

This has been a very thorny issue. There are two conflicting, diametrically opposed issues. One is the nature and character of the market square in Stony Stratford and the other is the nature of the road haulage industry which make it so irresistible to park lorries in this place. One ought to give a certain amount of weight to both sides of this controversy.

The fact is that I am familiar with the general appearance of this market square. My hon. Friend mentioned the parking of heavy tanks; I once slept in a tank in this square. This was an improvement on the performance of the tank almost in front of me, which, if my recollection serves me aright, charged and almost totally demolished an air-raid shelter which had been built there.

Stony Stratford has the fortune or misfortune to be astride an exceptionally busy trunk road, the A 5, through which a heavy volume of industrial traffic passes by day and by night. The Square is of historic interest, and 15 of its 24 houses are scheduled for preservation. Barring a 19th-century police station, which has no architectural merit whatso ever, the Square is unquestionably a feature which local representatives have every right to fight to preserve.

The habit of parking heavy vehicles there is not new. It has been growing steadily since the war. Indeed, this is one of our problems. It has come to be regarded by the industry as an indispensable administrative haven for those in charge of heavy goods vehicles. It is fair to say that if the council had taken such action earlier as it now desires to take to restrict the parking there of heavy lorries, the step might have been easier. It is undeniable that such lorries—this emerged at the inquiry which my right hon. Friend caused to be held into this problem—that many of these lorries burn diesel oil, which smells most unpleasant, and that they start up at cock-crow, which disturbs the rest of many people sleeping in the vicinity. On balance, I fancy that there is less damage to the amenities than to the tranquillity of the surrounding population. That is one side of the coin.

Now, as to industry. One issue here is the lorry-driver's working day. Without entering into details, which can be found in Section 19 of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, the inescapable fact is that the distance of Stony Stratford in all directions from several industrial areas where road transport lorries start, is just about 12 hours' run, or 11 hours' actual driving. It is almost halfway between London and Birmingham and it lies athwart big industrial routes between the London Docks, and Nottingham, Leicester and eastern seaports. It follows from that that, geographically, Stony Stratford is not only an exceptionally convenient place for long-distance drivers to stop for the night; it also enables them to comply with the statutory requirements of their industry. That is one of the reasons why this situation has arisen.

There is this to be added. Over the period in which this practice of parking lorries has obtained, a large number of administrative facilities have been established, not only for refreshment, but for sleeping, and on these the drivers have come to depend. They can park their lorries, take refreshment and sleep the night there, not only near the lorries but somewhere where, if they are required by the police or anybody else, they can be found. Incidentally, for those who drive alone most of the day, they have the additional attraction of companions of the road with whom they can pass the time.

So it is fair to say that in this controversy the interests of the industry and of the town or market place are fairly evenly balanced. They were both represented fully at the inquiry. Having studied, as I have done rather carefully the past history, I think I should add this. I feel it is a pity that the Wolverton Urban District Council did not see fit, last autumn, to meet and discuss this matter with the Transport and General Workers' Union when the union asked for a discussion. Naturally, the union felt strongly about this, for some of the reasons I have given.

It may well be that if there had been friendly discussions at that stage, this situation would never have arisen, but now, of course, the Transport and General Workers' Union is roused on the subject. It strongly opposes the byelaws which the council has proposed, and, of course, it is supported by other transport interests and by some of the local traders.

A subsidiary difficulty, which bears on the attitude of the police, is that no alternative is available within a reasonable distance. Simply to require the lorries to move on from Stony Stratford offers no solution at all. I do not say that the council is under any obligation to provide alternative parking accommodation, which, the council may say, is not its affair, but it does seem to me that en alternative might be sought. I merely put this to my hon. and gallant Friend. Is there no other vacant land near the High Street which might be considered? It is not really for me to suggest, but this might produce a compromise solution.

I have said that my right hon. Friend weighed the conflicting considerations which were put before him in this case. There was a full inquiry, and I have read the whole report. My right hon. Friend, having had the inquiry, reached the conclusions on which my hon. and gallant Friend has raised this Adjournment debate. He decided that the byelaws proposed by the urban district council should not be confirmed. I have tried to state the position as fairly as I can.

The hon. Member for Islington, East will, I think, agree that he raised the rather wider case of the general problems of parking. I have presented the two sides of the controversy and indicated why, on balance, my right hon. Friend has felt impelled to reach his decision and why he sees no cause to change it.

Sir F. Markham

s: I raised the wider question of whether the Minister would raise with the Ministry of Transport the future difficulties that might arise under the proposed regulations unless the road definitions are altered. Can my hon. Friend reply to this?

Mr. Deedes

In so far as that affects my right hon. Friend, I certainly undertake that we will consider it with the Ministry of Transport.

Mr. E. Fletcher

Will the Parliamentary Secretary bear in mind, arising from what he said, that there is a danger of people acquiring, almost by prescription, a right to use parking places in certain streets if the practice is allowed to continue long enough unchallenged?

Mr. Deedes

indicated assent.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at eleven minutes to Eleven o'clock.