...any good links regarding legislation about parking a bicycle

[Kambridge]

I know that you can't park a bicycle anywhere that causes any sort of obstruction, or in a way which causes damage, but I want to pin-down the rules and regulations on parking at bicycle stands in England and Wales which are in open areas on private land. Anybody? Thanks!

[bogmyrtle]

I would doubt there is specific legislation. Local authorities could maybe have bylaws but I'm not aware of any.
Why are you asking?

[DaveP]

the rules and regulations on parking at bicycle stands in England and Wales which are in open areas on private land.

I think your question contains a clue to the likely answers, now rubricated!
In general, I think the owner of said private land could feel fully entitled to take whatever steps were necessary to detach the 'foreign' equipment and remove it to the nearest public area. His bike stands are for his friends and guests. And that as long as he took reasonable care of the bike while moving it to the nearest public space your subsequent complaints, should you have the temerity, would be without substance.
You could protest, of course, but you could be doing so as a pedestrian!

What sort of private land are you referring to?

[gaz]

Shopping complexes, business parks, country parks and railway stations spring to mind as areas where there may be cycle parking stands open to the public on private land.

[Kambridge]

Thanks for all the answers! Sorry I was so opaque! It is that my daughter has to partially commute to school and can't take her bicycle on the train. Owing to a disability needs to park near the station. There is no parking available to disabled cyclists near enough or easy to access to the station.

There are several large blocks of flats with stands outside which are also public footways at which it is easy to park. I have read-up on it before and the law, patched together, is that a bicycle can be temporarily parked on private property, any private property, but can be removed and temporarily stored by the property owner if it is left untouched for a period of 14 days, and all efforts are made to alert the bicycle's owner, otherwise the owner of said property cannot move the bike. But I didn't bookmark the site with the legal authorities for this information and I wondered if anyone else had knowledge of them. Also, a bicycle can't be moved at all without incurring a civil and/criminal wrong if the lock or any part of the bicycle is damaged. None of that applies if the bicycle is blocking any sort of path or carriageway, either on public or private land.

The land I am referring to has public right of way.

[bogmyrtle]

So these are bike stands that have been provided for occupants of the flats? Is asking the landlord's permission out of the question? Also, what about security?

[gaz]

I have read-up on it before ... But I didn't bookmark the site with the legal authorities for this information and I wondered if anyone else had knowledge of them.

There are a number of threads (many started by QUIST) which cover the removal of locks left at bike stands, occasionally the discussions stray into the removal of bikes.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=105176

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=94474

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=75837

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=70382

viewtopic.php?p=107483

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=82969

I do not recall any links to legislation in those threads, you are welcome to plough through and check. There were some links to Council policies (may now be out of date) and I would hope that such policies were drawn up with regard to the law.

[Vorpal]

Thanks for all the answers! Sorry I was so opaque! It is that my daughter has to partially commute to school and can't take her bicycle on the train. Owing to a disability needs to park near the station. There is no parking available to disabled cyclists near enough or easy to access to the station.

Maybe another way to look at this...

Could her bicycle be considered a mobility aid? Maybe she could get a letter from her GP stating that the bicycle is needed as a mobility aid/invalid carriage, and take it on the train with her?

[DaveP]

IMO the next to last is probably the most useful, containing, as it does, a few pearls from thirdcrank.
Of these, the one I would draw your attention to is the last one, to the effect that obtaining redress for lost / damaged bikes and locks could easily cost more than the value of the items in question, which relates to my earlier response. I'm sure that I remember reading somewhere about irritated home owners (in London?) "removing" bike locks hooked through their railings. I don't recall mention of any consequences...
I do sympathise with your problem, but I think that while you could "get away" with just using the bike stands for a long while without officialdom taking notice there could come a day when the housing management decide to paint stuff or just generally tidy up. Of course, the tenants would be notified in advance...
You could possibly avert this by asking permission, but if refused your legal position, should you go ahead anyway, would be pretty devoid of rights. And refused it probably would be for fear of associated liabilities. It might, just, be worth getting your daughter to write, describing her circumstances and asking for permission.
Beyond that, though, I have to say that in general I would not choose to lock my bike to a stand outside "a large block of flats", certainly not regularly. Call me cynical if you must...

[thirdcrank]

A few more pearls, hopefully.

It seems to me that if it's private property, then the owner and/or occupier decide pretty much what goes on. I've a rather nice stainless steel sheffield stand on my drive and while our visitors who arrive by bike are welcome to use it, in the unlikely event that some sort of mystery commuter's bike appeared, I'd take a dim view. Perhaps my first step would be to improve the protection of their bike against theft by adding a big lock of my own and when they knocked on the door to ask for its removal, we could discuss things.

If the private place was connected with the provision of some sort of service, eg retail park then things like access for the disabled would apply, but I'm pretty sure that the owners can set their own rules, although I think they would only do so if some sort of problem arose. Otherwise, bike racks are just one of those things they provide because they have to.

If this is the communal bike parking for a block of flats, or similar, I cannot see how anybody but a resident or bona fide visitor to a resident has even a moral right to park a bike, but who's going to complain? IME, if the stands are used at all, it's likely to be by other commuters rather than residents, who are more likely to find somewhere safer to store their bikes. BTW, I fancy you are more likely to have trouble from thieves than residents if a bike is regularly left for long periods like this.

You mention your own research on the subject, if you post some links somebody with the relevant legal knowledge may comment (most of this is civil law of which I have little knowledge or experience.)

[Kambridge]

Thanks for the helpful replies. I will find the relevant legislation and post it up on this thread.

The land in questions is owned by a mixture of corporate property investors/entities and the blocks of flats are owned by yet a different set of large and medium sized property investors, so as such, there is no landlord. It is managed by a firm which has no interest in pursuing bicycle parking; only rubbish dumping and antisocial, criminal or environmentally harmful activities in the area. The area has full rights of way to the public, which was part in f the planning ageement for it. I expect more areas like this will mushroom as time goes by as big players start to form groups to provide accommodation supply within the poverty of the housing sector, but who build upon otherwise public land where freedom of movement must be preserved for the local population. But in that area there is a gross under supply of bicycle parking spaces, and nothing at all for people with special needs who like to cycle, sadly.

[thirdcrank]

Again, from a layman's perspective, I think it's important to understand that there is little land, especially in urban areas with no landlord. Even if land is owned by the local authority, it's still private. Private property may well be a public place for many purposes, but within the constraints of the law eg planning permission etc., the owner can set the rules. Off-road car parking is relevant in this context and the subject of a lot more aggro than bike parking.

Public rights of way form a very complicated area of the law which may go by the board until somebody invokes them, perhaps by a claim for compo. A while back there was a thread about rights of way and I dug up a pretty recent legal case where it was held that the law in relation to the access routes to some apartments with communal entrances that highway authorities had been interpreting the law wrongly. I can't remember the details or which way it went but it illustrates my point that it's not a simple area of the law. I can't see how a right of way confers any right to use land for anything other than passing over it.

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Edit to add:

Sorry that's the second post where I completely forgot to mention that I don't know of any links of the type you're looking for. That's hardly definitive, of course, but if they existed, I think I'd have found them hard to miss in all the cycling-related stuff I've ploughed through over the years.

[mjr]

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1982/30/section/41 is the section of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982 that I think notices cite when it's the local authority removing bicycles. I'm not sure what the private landowner's equivalent would be.

[mjr]

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewto ... 00#p957300 suggests it should be reported to the police as lost property and dealt with like that.

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/thef ... x.html#a11 says abandoned property has no owner, so cannot be stolen. I'm not sure how one establishes that property is abandoned in that sense, though.

[Vorpal]

I would think that they most likely law to apply in the case of a bicycle parked on someone else's property (assuming it is not blocking a right of way), is tort law, and in particular http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1977/32

That said, a case could be made for Volenti non fit injuria; that is the legal concept of willingly risking something.

With permission, it's okay to park there. Without permission, it is a risk, though probably small that the the landowners would object and remove the bicycle without a possibility for recovery of damages.

IMO, the risk of theft is probably higher, but if you can obtain permission, the problem is solved.