What travel restrictions change from the 29th March?

[nedchester]

the way I see it is:

29th March: Stay Local - travel allowed within police district (?)
12th April: All domestic travel allowed
17th May (subject to review): International travel allowed.

There are no legal restrictions on travel within England from March 29th

 

[HST43257]

There are no legal restrictions on travel within England from March 29th

Is the advice just to stay local?

 

[Watershed]

Is the advice just to stay local?

It will just be advice. I've no idea where you got the idea of staying within a police district though!

 

[HST43257]

It will just be advice. I've no idea where you got the idea of staying within a police district though!

Just from a friend, who I believe knows their stuff - could easily be wrong though! I do wonder what the boundaries for local are, though.

 

[Watershed]

Just from a friend, who I believe knows their stuff - could easily be wrong though! I do wonder what the boundaries for local are, though.

The government guidance defines local in the following wooly terms:

you should avoid travelling outside of your village, town or the part of a city where you live

However, as always, this is just the guidance, which in many respects (including here) bears no resemblance to the law.

 

[cuccir]

legally you have to stay local;

Please can you point to where that is said in law please?

I was trying to phrase things simply in order to answer a simple question. But if you really want to dive into pedentary, the law is here...

1.—(1) No person... may leave or be outside of the place where they are living without reasonable excuse.

(2) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (1)—

(a)the circumstances in which a person has a reasonable excuse include where one of the exceptions set out in paragraph 2 applies;

(b)the place where a person is living includes the premises where they live together with any garden, yard, passage, stair, garage, outhouse or other appurtenance of such premises.

(3) This paragraph does not apply to any person who is homeless.

The law acutally stll refers to the old tiers but current legislation has been reworded to apply to all tiers.

There are 20 groups of exceptions quoted in the legislation that qualify as "reasonable excuses" So to be precise - you need to remain at home unless you are out for a permitted exception, and doing so is resonable. The original question was about recreation and not, for example, about being an elite athlete or campaigning in a general eleciton so going into 20 exceptions didn't seem relevant.

For the majority of people the majoirty of the time, to be rasonably following these exceptions you need to stay local. While the guidance is not the law, it can be cited in whether or not what you did was reasonable: like not following the non-obligatory parts of the Highway Code, choosing to ignore the guidance when there is not a good reason to do so could be enough to push an excuse into the realm of the unreasonable.

I can go to the bank, but if I decided to travel from County Durham to Cornwall to use the branch of Nationwide in Truro I might reasonably be said to not actually be out for the purposes of withdrawing money, but for travel. It's permitted to travel for exercise but it would be hard to say that it's reasonable for me to need to do this by hiking up Scafell Pike.

The exemption

to visit a public outdoor place for the purposes of open air recreation

added after 8th March does complicate matters - if your outdoor recreation is rock-clibmbing, it might make it reasonable to travel several hundred miles to get to the nearest large cliff-faces. If your outdoor recreation is surfing and you live in Coventry, maybe you could make a case for going to the coast. But I wouldn't want to be sure about this - is it reasonable to need to do specific forms of outdoor recreation if other forms of recreation are available to you more closely? Either way the question was about afte 29th March when this element will be removed so it seems safer to provide cautious advice rather than risking advising our hypothetical Coventry-based surfer to open themselves up to a fine.

Anyone who is confident in their reasoning to not stay local for an activity is free to try it and take the matter to court if questioned.

 

[Jamesrob637]

What possible harm can it do if I stay overnight at my second home which I will occupy alone, having travelled to it alone?

Nothing after tomorrow week.

 

[Bertie the bus]

added after 8th March does complicate matters - if your outdoor recreation is rock-clibmbing, it might make it reasonable to travel several hundred miles to get to the nearest large cliff-faces. If your outdoor recreation is surfing and you live in Coventry, maybe you could make a case for going to the coast. But I wouldn't want to be sure about this - is it reasonable to need to do specific forms of outdoor recreation if other forms of recreation are available to you more closely? Either way the question was about afte 29th March when this element will be removed so it seems safer to provide cautious advice rather than risking advising our hypothetical Coventry-based surfer to open themselves up to a fine.

Anyone who is confident in their reasoning to not stay local for an activity is free to try it and take the matter to court if questioned.

That question can't be serious. The law doesn't state what outdoor activities we should be doing or are allowed to do - just outdoor recreation. Surprising considering the government has tried to control every aspect of our lives for the last 12 months but it doesn't. Therefore, it isn't for the police, ministers, the media or random people to tell us which activities they think are reasonable and where we should be doing them.

 

[cuccir]

Therefore, it isn't for the police, ministers, the media or random people to tell us which activities they think are reasonable and where we should be doing them.

Just to be clear: I am not telling people what's reasonable and I don't think this is a strong bit of the law. The 'stay at home' guidance should have been dropped the day that outdoor recreation became legal.

However, given the existence of the guidance and the wording of the law I'm not sure I agree with the statement, at least in relation to the police. In this three-week window between 8th and 29th March, to leave your home you have to have a reasonable excuse to apply an exception. We are guided by government to stay local, and this can be used as part of the argument as to what is reasonable. There are some things which are clearly not reasonable (travelling to Cornwall from the North East of England to use a bank); some things which may or may or not be reasonable but which would almost definitely result in a fine if you encounter police, and which I reckon you'd need to take to court to challenge (my hypothetical Coventry-based surfer); some things which are reasonable but which are close enough to that grey to possibly result in a fine if you met overzealous police, but which I'd expect to be be overturned on appeal (driving 30 minutes to go for a country walk); and some things that are clearly reasonable (taking a 30 minute walk from your house)

Thankfully this element of the law disappears a week today.

 

[Cdd89]

The police appear to routinely issue FPNs for things that are almost certainly legal (eg driving two miles to get a coffee, not believing someone’s mask exemption), and conversely the CPS seem to be extremely loath to prosecute for anything even remotely borderline, if the defendant has at least half a defence.

I expect the CPS would take the view that in the absence of an explicit distance limit in the regulations for open air recreation, a prosecution would be on shaky ground. Adding a distance limit would probably worsen compliance overall, since the media would cover that “you can now travel 20 miles”, and people going from 3 miles to 20 would vastly outnumber those people who had been going 100 miles who had been clipped down to 20.

As a deterrent the unpredictable boundaries and capricious police enforcement will be viewed by some as an advantage.

 

[Grumbler]

Just from a friend, who I believe knows their stuff - could easily be wrong though! I do wonder what the boundaries for local are, though.

The nearest open pub?

 

[route101]

Anyone come across the police or been questioned?

 

[Jamesrob637]

Anyone come across the police or been questioned?

Only during first lockdown. They were fine when I said I lived 500 metres away (!) Which was the truth.

They had a better rep back then but if you want to discuss the police in further detail, I believe that there's a dedicated thread under "Coronavirus."

 

[Mojo]

the way I see it is:

29th March: Stay Local - travel allowed within police district (?)
12th April: All domestic travel allowed
17th May (subject to review): International travel allowed.

The government guidance defines local in the following wooly terms:

you should avoid travelling outside of your village, town or the part of a city where you live

However, as always, this is just the guidance, which in many respects (including here) bears no resemblance to the law.

I am always amused by people who have tried to define "local" and the various complications of that word, perhaps with a bit of sympathy for those who are drafting said laws and with an understanding of why it perhaps has not thus far appeared in any laws.

The problem with limiting something to police district, or even council areas or regions is; my nearest urban centre with normal supermarkets, shops, etc, also the headquarters of the local authority where you can access many public services, is about a 5km walk/drive. The best route, 3.5km after leaving home, takes me outside of my police district, local authority and even crosses into a different region, before I pass back in as I get closer to my destination. Meanwhile if I were to go in the other direction from my house I could travel nearly 50km before I leave the police district!

 

[Cdd89]

Anyone come across the police or been questioned?

Twice for essential travel reasons in lockdowns 1 and 3, both times oddly enough at slightly random tube stations. They were questioning other people not me, and ironically I would bet the people they were targeting had better reasons for travelling than I did (even though I’m confident I was within the law).

Many more times for face covering enforcement (even though that’s kind of an oxymoron!).

 

[pdeaves]

What possible harm can it do if I stay overnight at my second home which I will occupy alone, having travelled to it alone?

If it's your home, albeit a second one, you are still 'at home'. What's to say that isn't your first home and you first one is actually your second?

 

[richw]

I’m working a lot of rail replacement at present. Last week BTP plain clothed officers were boarding our vehicles and then checking journey reasoning.
One couple each got fined for travelling 12 miles to walk their dog on the (Nearest) beach.
BTP seem the only ones really bothered where I aim

 

[route101]

I was wondering what they would do if they stopped you and you were about to catch the train home? Ive used the train a couple of times on the way and back from a walk.

 

[Watershed]

I’m working a lot of rail replacement at present. Last week BTP plain clothed officers were boarding our vehicles and then checking journey reasoning.
One couple each got fined for travelling 12 miles to walk their dog on the (Nearest) beach.
BTP seem the only ones really bothered where I aim

Abuses of power like that aren't even particularly surprising anymore. And I'm sure it's just a minority of officers who are of a disposition to issue FPNs as ludicrous (and unlawful) as those.

But the police seem not to have any interest in properly disseminating the law to such officers (even if common sense cannot be instilled in them). Therefore you can never be sure whether an individual officer you encounter will belong to that minority.

Therefore every incident like that reduces people's faith in the police, quite understandably so.

I was wondering what they would do if they stopped you and you were about to catch the train home? Ive used the train a couple of times on the way and back from a walk.

It would mean that the power to direct you to return home would not really be very relevant. But they could still issue a FPN if they had grounds for reasonable suspicion of an offence.

Taking a train home after a walk is unlikely to give grounds for such suspicion.

 

[P Binnersley]

The Regulations from 29th March have been published (for England).

From a brief reading
- No requirement to stay at home.
- Rule of 6 Outdoors.
- No indoor gatherings (usual exceptions).
- Restrictions on leaving the UK formalised (No restrictions on Common travel area).
- Provisions for following stages listed, but no start date.

 

[Tazi Hupefi]

The Regulations from 29th March have been published (for England).

From a brief reading
- No requirement to stay at home.
- Rule of 6 Outdoors.
- No indoor gatherings (usual exceptions).
- Restrictions on leaving the UK formalised (No restrictions on Common travel area).
- Provisions for following stages listed, but no start date.

And protests explicitly allowed again under certain circumstances, as opposed to currently where they are allowed, but only on a qualified human rights basis.

Essentially you can set yourself up as a 1 man limited company, (if you're not already), organise a protest and it's potentially legal as long as various conditions are met, mainly around risk assessments and mitigation of potential harms.

 

[Watershed]

The Regulations from 29th March have been published (for England).

From a brief reading
- No requirement to stay at home.
- Rule of 6 Outdoors.
- No indoor gatherings (usual exceptions).
- Restrictions on leaving the UK formalised (No restrictions on Common travel area).
- Provisions for following stages listed, but no start date.

Notably no restriction on staying away from home overnight, as there was last year at the equivalent stage of the reopening.

 

[southern442]

17th May (subject to review): International travel allowed.

I am starting to very much doubt this will happen now, it will probably be 'essential abroad travel only' or something for quite a while.
Not that it's a problem for me; I can very rarely afford to travel abroad and it is the same story for trips abroad with the family too. I would imagine a lot of other people are in that situation. I'm not a gigantic flag-waver but I certainly intend to prioritise exploration of this country above others for the time being.

 

[Wychwood93]

I am starting to very much doubt this will happen now, it will probably be 'essential abroad travel only' or something for quite a while.
Not that it's a problem for me; I can very rarely afford to travel abroad and it is the same story for trips abroad with the family too. I would imagine a lot of other people are in that situation. I'm not a gigantic flag-waver but I certainly intend to prioritise exploration of this country above others for the time being.

Hard to disagree with that. We have a Bournemouth/Málaga return in the bank of Ryanair - booking was to be up to the end of June, now stretched to end of December. If no booking made then we will get a refund. We are leaving any booking until we are comfy with not having to quarantine on arrival/return and the general levels of restrictions abroad.

 

[richw]

Notably no restriction on staying away from home overnight, as there was last year at the equivalent stage of the reopening.

Although Boris said in his speeches no staying away from home overnight until 12th April this doesn’t seem to be reflected in the document

 

[Watershed]

Although Boris said in his speeches no staying away from home overnight until 12th April this doesn’t seem to be reflected in the document

Indeed. The trouble is finding somewhere that will take you - hotels etc. are still subject to the existing restrictions on who they can cater to.

I suppose you could go camping (even in someone's garden!).

 

[Mojo]

Indeed. The trouble is finding somewhere that will take you - hotels etc. are still subject to the existing restrictions on who they can cater to.

I suppose you could go camping (even in someone's garden!).

I was about to suggest... I could go camping in a family member’s garden. Times like these I wish for a caravan; as someone who doesn’t mind camping it’s a little too chilly over Easter!

 

[Watershed]

I was about to suggest... I could go camping in a family member’s garden. Times like these I wish for a caravan; as someone who doesn’t mind camping it’s a little too chilly over Easter!

Yes, that's a good point. A motorhome may be the ideal way of going on holiday at the moment!

 

[Mojo]

Yes, that's a good point. A motorhome may be the ideal way of going on holiday at the moment!

I remember in June last year, a big deal was made about how it was illegal to spend a night away from home (presumably normal exceptions about work etc applied). Was this ever the law or just assumed?

 

[richw]

Indeed. The trouble is finding somewhere that will take you - hotels etc. are still subject to the existing restrictions on who they can cater to.

I suppose you could go camping (even in someone's garden!).

I was about to suggest... I could go camping in a family member’s garden. Times like these I wish for a caravan; as someone who doesn’t mind camping it’s a little too chilly over Easter!

I’ve a 20ft length sprinter van, it could have its uses now, not sure why I never thought about it before