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motorhome restriction seaford

tringy

By tringy
in Motorhome Matters

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tringy Collaborator

tringy

Posted
Posted

Hi all, a freind of mine lives in seaford and rang me to say the council have put signs up to restrict parking on the sea front by limiting the hight and length of vehicles parked. Has anyone else seen this and can confirm this .if so I don't know how they can do this .can anyone out there confirm this? This would be a real shame we often go fishing there in the summer parking for the day.cheers Tringy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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747 Grand Master

747

Posted
Posted

Councils are notorious at putting up illegal signs, Scarborough Council being one of the worst offenders.

 

Basically, Councils need to go through a procedure to implement changes and obtain the right to do so. The easiest way to find out is to go on the Council website and look for the new restrictions. If there are none, it is a try on by the Council, maybe someone has complained about motorhome parking and the Council have stuck a few signs up to get a peaceful life.

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aka4ajax Collaborator

aka4ajax

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Thanks Daven,

Very interesting and obviously any ticket for violation could not stand up in court if issued.

I just checked my V5 document and even though I have a mobile village of a MH at 8.2m it does not have anything listed in the category on the V5.
So by law as you mentioned it needs to be a Cat 'M'.... oh dear an enforceable limit.
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aka4ajax Collaborator

aka4ajax

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I think its all MH after 2012 now have the category listed whereas earlier ones it was blank.

From Andy' website, hope you don't mind me pasting your research direct to here; "I then phoned numerous motorhomers. All confirmed that on their Registration Certificate (RC) – usually referred to as ‘log-book’ – the “Vehicle Category” was blank (as can be seen from the extract below). This means that all motorhomers who have a RC with no stated vehicle category are “exempt” from the SBC “No Motor Caravan” legislation.

I then needed to establish how many of the motorhomes in England are not of “Vehicle Category M”. The DfT vehicle stats provided the answer. The most up to date figures I have are for March 2014 these show that:

  • There are 233,782 UK motorhomes
  • Only 10,464 of these are of “Vehicle Category M” on their RC
  • As per the RC 95% of motorhomes are not motor caravans as per the Directive 2007/46/EC and the NYCC “No Motor Caravans” order,"
  • There are a number of vehicles that are not registered as M1(Special Purpose) Motor Caravans, that meet the same specification, but are registered under different categories due to emissions and other reasons.
I do not know exactly what an M1 states, or if it falls under the M category as the sign prohibits. 

Perhaps Andy as he is a specialist in this and a champion of the subject (thanks), can you look into that too?
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aka4ajax Collaborator

aka4ajax

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I have just done some of my own research:

Although the CATEGORY is blank, the VEHICLE TYPE is what the DVLA state the vehicle use as.

So on Line D.5 is the vehicle type. Mine clearly shows MOTOR CARAVAN

So the signs would apply to me, and it wouldn't take a whizz of a prosecution lawyer to prove, I had parked an unauthorised vehicle illegally overnight.

So as much as I had wished Andy to have been correct, I fear in my case and properly many of the other 95% we are classed as Motor Caravans.
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Keithl Grand Master

Keithl

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But there is a downside to his argument - namely that if the vehicle you are driving is NOT classified as a 'Motor Caravan' then you cannot claim the exemption to Heavy Goods Vehicle (not more than 7.5 tonnes) speed limits!

 

To explain, the speed limit for a HGV is 50 mph on a single carriageway road and 60 mph on a dual carriageway but there is a special exemption for MH's with an UNLADEN weight below 3.05 tonnes whereby the speed limit for a car applies, namely 60 mph and 70 mph respectively.

 

See Gov.uk for more details... https://www.gov.uk/speed-limits

 

So is he shooting himself in the foot by claiming we are NOT driving 'Motor Caravans'?

 

Also we get special exemption for MOT's as Class IV, ie a car and not as a HGV which is far more expensive and demanding.

 

And I'm sure the list goes on...

 

Keith.

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747 Grand Master

747

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Keithl - 2016-01-25 6:50 PM

 

But there is a downside to his argument - namely that if the vehicle you are driving is NOT classified as a 'Motor Caravan' then you cannot claim the exemption to Heavy Goods Vehicle (not more than 7.5 tonnes) speed limits!

 

To explain, the speed limit for a HGV is 50 mph on a single carriageway road and 60 mph on a dual carriageway but there is a special exemption for MH's with an UNLADEN weight below 3.05 tonnes whereby the speed limit for a car applies, namely 60 mph and 70 mph respectively.

 

See Gov.uk for more details... https://www.gov.uk/speed-limits

 

So is he shooting himself in the foot by claiming we are NOT driving 'Motor Caravans'?

 

Also we get special exemption for MOT's as Class IV, ie a car and not as a HGV which is far more expensive and demanding.

 

And I'm sure the list goes on...

 

Keith.

 

Andy Strangeway is not shooting himself in the foot ....... he has never owned a Motorhome.

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colin Grand Master

colin

Posted
Posted
aka4ajax - 2016-01-24 3:36 PMI think its all MH after 2012 now have the category listed whereas earlier ones it was blank.
From Andy' website, hope you don't mind me pasting your research direct to here; "I then phoned numerous motorhomers. All confirmed that on their Registration Certificate (RC) – usually referred to as ‘log-book’ – the “Vehicle Category” was blank (as can be seen from the extract below). This means that all motorhomers who have a RC with no stated vehicle category are “exempt” from the SBC “No Motor Caravan” legislation.

I then needed to establish how many of the motorhomes in England are not of “Vehicle Category M”. The DfT vehicle stats provided the answer. The most up to date figures I have are for March 2014 these show that:

  • There are 233,782 UK motorhomes
  • Only 10,464 of these are of “Vehicle Category M” on their RC
  • As per the RC 95% of motorhomes are not motor caravans as per the Directive 2007/46/EC and the NYCC “No Motor Caravans” order,"
  • There are a number of vehicles that are not registered as M1(Special Purpose) Motor Caravans, that meet the same specification, but are registered under different categories due to emissions and other reasons.
I do not know exactly what an M1 states, or if it falls under the M category as the sign prohibits. 

Perhaps Andy as he is a specialist in this and a champion of the subject (thanks), can you look into that too?
The EU directive gives certain specifics to motorcaravans such as 'sound levels', 'emissions' etc. and these are listed under M1,M2,M3, there appears to be no listing of M.
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Muswell Mentor

Muswell

Posted
Posted
Brian Kirby - 2016-01-28 6:47 PM

 

Whatever the reg doc says, I'd be much more inclined to the argument that if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and waddles like a duck, it is a duck! Too clever by 'arf, methinks! :-D

 

Especially since all the manufacturers seem to describe their products as motorhomes. Then you could argue about the difference between a motorhome and a motor caravan. So how many angels are there on the head of a pin?

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Derek Uzzell Grand Master

Derek Uzzell

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This link may be of interest

 

http://www.mariacaulfield.co.uk/news/maria-caulfield-mp-welcomes-seaford-town-council-opposition-seafront-parking-town

 

Seaford Town Council meetings minutes can be read on-line, but it would be necessary to plough through the relevant ‘parking’ report to obtain the background to the parking restrictions shown on the sign Will H provided a photo of in his recent posting.

 

There’s nothing to suggest that proper procedure has not been followed.

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747 Grand Master

747

Posted
Posted
colin - 2016-01-29 12:08 AM

 

747 - 2016-01-28 11:50 PM

 

It does not matter if they ban vehicles because of its height, length, weight, or resemblance to a Duck.

 

Its an illegal sign.

 

What is illegal about the sign?

 

The section referring to HGV's etc has two road signs on it. They have been made up by someone with a vivid imagination and are not legal. Nobody can just design a new sign to suit their own purposes. There are an approved list of signs for Official Bodies to use. If it aint on the list, it's illegal. It is on matters like this that thousands of motorists have been fined and then embarassed Official Bodies have had to repay the money raised by these illegal signs. The most recent case publicised was in York.

 

http://forums.outandaboutlive.co.uk/forums/Motorhomes/Motorhome-Matters/Parking-at-Seaford-seafront-Sussex/40707/

 

As I said at the beginning of this thread, don't trust Council signage. I am not saying that they are evil, it's more like they are inept.

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