Revised English Covid Regulations from 8 March 2021

[yorksrob]

It’s absolutely ridiculous. If I post a list of places I want to carry out recreation, anyone fancy being my friend for the day?

What a farce!

Indeed. In my view, the outdoor recreation should have been the first thing to be released after lockdown (not that I agree with lockdown in the first place). However I'm prepared to use what leeway there is in the regulations.

 

[bramling]

Given that is currently an offence to be outside of your home without a reasonable excuse. Until you have provided the reasonable excuse they would have reasonable suspicion maybe but not after? I'm not a lawyer just thinking here.

Am I the only one who dislikes the term “excuse”, as to me it straightaway implies wrongdoing.

 

[Bertie the bus]

Given that is currently an offence to be outside of your home without a reasonable excuse. Until you have provided the reasonable excuse they would have reasonable suspicion maybe but not after? I'm not a lawyer just thinking here.

No. Outdoor leisure is a reasonable excuse to be outside your home therefore if you are stood by a railway with a camera in your hand there can be little doubt what you are doing. Even if there was doubt you could tell them what you are doing and that would leave no grounds for reasonable suspicion.

 

[bramling]

Indeed. In my view, the outdoor recreation should have been the first thing to be released after lockdown (not that I agree with lockdown in the first place). However I'm prepared to use what leeway there is in the regulations.

To be fair I can see there does need to be some kind of strategy, simply to limit what we saw last year at places like Bournemouth and Durdle Door.

However, things should be different this time as the key difference is that children are now back at school, which they weren’t when last year’s lockdown started to be eased. That in itself should calm things down a lot, though the Easter school holidays could be interesting - especially as weren’t we all told to follow the science and have Christmas at Easter instead?!

 

[yorksrob]

To be fair I can see there does need to be some kind of strategy, simply to limit what we saw last year at places like Bournemouth and Durdle Door.

However, things should be different this time as the key difference is that children are now back at school, which they weren’t when last year’s lockdown started to be eased. That in itself should calm things down a lot, though the Easter school holidays could be interesting - especially as weren’t we all told to follow the science and have Christmas at Easter instead?!

I suppose the tricky thing is that people will tend to gravitate towards nice places.

The counter to that is that so long as the necessary facilities are provided at places like the seaside, people are quite good at keeping apart outdoors with minimal risk.

 

[bramling]

No. Outdoor leisure is a reasonable excuse to be outside your home therefore if you are stood by a railway with a camera in your hand there can be little doubt what you are doing. Even if there was doubt you could tell them what you are doing and that would leave no grounds for reasonable suspicion.

But what is the best thing to say if the officer then says “I have checked and your car is registered to an address 150 miles away, can you explain why you have travelled such a long distance to be here?” Or for that matter if you get stopped whilst on the way to such a location - though I’m not sure there’s much of that going on now, in England at least.

I suppose the tricky thing is that people will tend to gravitate towards nice places.

The counter to that is that so long as the necessary facilities are provided at places like the seaside, people are quite good at keeping apart outdoors with minimal risk.

It’s more the impacts on locals that’s the problem. Or, for that matter, if hoards of people were to decide to do a trip by train to somewhere like Margate, on Southeastern’s new super 4-car halved-frequency timetable!

 

[yorksrob]

It’s more the impacts on locals that’s the problem. Or, for that matter, if hoards of people were to decide to do a trip by train to somewhere like Margate, on Southeastern’s new super 4-car halved-frequency timetable!

That all boils down to having the facilities you would normally have in place.

The Kent electrification scheme was a twelve carriage train scheme for a reason !

 

[Ediswan]

Am I the only one who dislikes the term “excuse”, as to me it straightaway implies wrongdoing.

No, not just you.

 

[bramling]

No, not just you.

Good. To me it feels like something which would be manufactured at somewhere like Eton to bunk off rugby.

Hardly a neutral term for a sensitive matter.

 

[Bertie the bus]

But what is the best thing to say if the officer then says “I have checked and your car is registered to an address 150 miles away, can you explain why you have travelled such a long distance to be here?” Or for that matter if you get stopped whilst on the way to such a location - though I’m not sure there’s much of that going on now, in England at least.

How are they going to know it is your car unless you detach one of the number plates and stick it to your coat? Just because the police ask you a question it doesn’t mean you have to answer.

I have been through something very similar in the past. A BTP demanded to know why I was photographing a graffitied train and I told him to mind his own business. He then started on the you can only photograph on stations with permission route until I asked him which piece of legislation stated that. He then stated although it wasn’t the law it was railway policy so I asked since when has enforcing company policy been a police matter. The icing on the cake was when he asked a member of platform staff to confirm I needed permission and they said they couldn’t care less what I was doing.

As for being stopped on the way there the chances of that are virtually zero. If you are committing a motoring offence they could also deal with it, as Police Scotland said they would, but I doubt there is any chance at all of being randomly stopped. All the instances I'm aware of of the police questioning people about how far they have travelled is where they have positioned themselves near car parks at known popular visitor areas and that was when only exercise was permitted which is no longer the case.

 

[LAX54]

This is only my understanding so I’m sure someone will correct me if it is incorrect. The coronavirus regulations don’t make it compulsory to provide your details to the police, they can’t assume wrongdoing if you don’t and they can only arrest you to confirm your details if they suspect you are breaking the law.

So to make it relevant to some on here, if you drove 50 miles to photograph trains and whilst doing it were questioned by the police you could just refuse to state where you had come from and as what you are doing is perfectly legal there is nothing that could be done about the distance you have travelled whether it is considered reasonable or not.

Although of course with an ANPR, or radio check of the car, they would have a very good idea, if not an exact idea where you had come from
If the 'guidance' is for the overall benefit of everyone, why would people be stupid enough to ignore it ?

 

[Cdd89]

Not having a friend to meet up with does make it a bit harder to 'justify' travelling a long distance to undertake open air recreation but it's still a pretty open set of criteria.

Not necessarily a friend, but “one other person”. Every destination potentially has at least one other person in it. So it is arguably never a lie to say you are travelling to meet another person for open air recreation..!

 

[Bertie the bus]

Although of course with an ANPR, or radio check of the car, they would have a very good idea, if not an exact idea where you had come from
If the 'guidance' is for the overall benefit of everyone, why would people be stupid enough to ignore it ?

I honestly can't work out if that is serious or meant to be a joke.

 

[CAF397]

If I live in the North West of England and am thinking about applying for a job in London, from 29th March will I now be permitted to travel down to London to check the location of work, and any potential places to live?

 

[bengley]

If I live in the North West of England and am thinking about applying for a job in London, from 29th March will I now be permitted to travel down to London to check the location of work, and any potential places to live?

You can do that now. One of the permitted reasons to leave home is to view properties

 

[CAF397]

You can do that now. One of the permitted reasons to leave home is to view properties

Thanks. I didn't know if distance came into this too. Its one thing looking around local ares, its another travelling 200 miles!

 

[bengley]

Thanks. I didn't know if distance came into this too. Its one thing looking around local ares, its another travelling 200 miles!

Yeah there's nothing in the regs which limits distance

 

[Hadders]

Although of course with an ANPR, or radio check of the car, they would have a very good idea, if not an exact idea where you had come from
If the 'guidance' is for the overall benefit of everyone, why would people be stupid enough to ignore it ?

Relying on where a car is registered won't always be accurate. I drive a company car, it is registered in the name of the Leasing Company several hundred miles from where I live.

My view is that the legislation is what should be followed. If the Government wants the guidance to be law then they should have incorporated into the law, they chose not to do that.

 

[DB]

Relying on where a car is registered won't always be accurate. I drive a company car, it is registered in the name of the Leasing Company several hundred miles from where I live.

And the older the car gets, the more likely it is to have been sold multiple times and moved around the country in any case.

 

[Bertie the bus]

Relying on where a car is registered won't always be accurate. I drive a company car, it is registered in the name of the Leasing Company several hundred miles from where I live.

They couldn't use ANPR anyway. It works off databases and then alerts if a car on the no insurance, stolen or suspect database is detected. Whilst ANPR does record all registrations that pass a camera according to the NPCC there are 55 million reads per day. Even assuming half that with the reduced current traffic levels, anybody who thinks the police have the resource to cross check 25 million number plates per day with camera location and registered location of the car is living in a fantasy world. Even if they could, although if a camera detects you are breaking the law, e.g. speed cameras, you are obliged to provide details of the driver I seriously doubt you are if the driver wasn't breaking traffic laws and the police just demanded to know who was driving, where they were going and what they were doing.

 

[XAM2175]

And the older the car gets, the more likely it is to have been sold multiple times and moved around the country in any case.

That is a reason not to rely on the "local memory tag" or area code at the start of a current-generation GB plate, yes. The discussion concerns checking the DVLA's records for the registered keeper of the vehicle - though as noted this is hugely impractical for anything beyond a small number of vehicles, and is not immune to 'false' hits where vehicles are registered to fleet managers and the like.

 

[david1212]

Am I the only one who dislikes the term “excuse”, as to me it straightaway implies wrongdoing.

I too dislike it. The wording should have been "valid reason" or similar.

 

[Philip]

If I travelled a couple of hundred miles to help transport something I've purchased which is currently based there (I need to get it to the place where it will go on to the low loader and it can't be delivered by post!)...would this be deemed a reasonable excuse before 29th March?

And to reduce the chances of getting stopped/asked questions, would it be better to drive down or take the train? I'm just thinking about ANPRS with regards driving.

 

[Watershed]

If I travelled a couple of hundred miles to help transport something I've purchased which is currently based there (I need to get it to the place where it will go on to the low loader and it can't be delivered by post!)...would this be deemed a reasonable excuse before 29th March?

And to reduce the chances of getting stopped/asked questions, would it be better to drive down or take the train? I'm just thinking about ANPRS with regards driving.

As a railway employee you're exceptionally unlikely to encounter any problems travelling on the train.

Without a bit more detail it's difficult to comment on the precise legalities for the scenario you ask about.

 

[DB]

I too dislike it. The wording should have been "valid reason" or similar.

It was an entirely deliberate choice of wording - part of the government's plan to get the public to demonise and blame non-mask wearers.

 

[Philip]

As a railway employee you're exceptionally unlikely to encounter any problems travelling on the train.

Without a bit more detail it's difficult to comment on the precise legalities for the scenario you ask about.

It's a boat I have bought and this boat move was supposed to happen some months ago, but because of lockdown and other reasons I've not done it yet. There have been easements for boat movements following the 8th March changes, so providing I don't stay overnight and I'm by myself/only with household etc then the boat moving side of it looks ok.

I need to travel from Manchester to near London to do this, as it basically involves taking it from the marina it is currently based in, to another marina which has a crane so that it can be put on the low loader for transport.

 

[317 forever]

Or...just do a postal vote...even easier


From Gov.UK March 8th Update:
exercise, or for outdoor recreation in a public outdoor space - this can be on your own, with your household or support bubble or with one other person (in which case you should stay 2m apart). You should minimise the amount of time spent outside your home, and you should not travel outside your local area

Yes, and SHOULD means the government are only discouraging not forbidding it. If they were forbidding it, such as overnight stays for exercise, it would read "You MUST not travel outside your local area". Leaving aside uncertainties as to the definition of local, the distinction between should and must really is as simple as that.

Pretty difficult to ride 317s in Cardiff

The electrification of the GWML to Cardiff make it physically possible to introduce them there but I digress. And yes, I know you are referring to examples of trains nowhere near specific "local" areas.

These regulations allow an outdoor activity/exercise to be undertaken with a friend.

Since it is unreasonable (and no attempt has been made) for the Government to try and stipulate who or where those friends are, it seems logical for me that one is entitled travel however far one needs to travel in order to undertake those activities with said friend.

It is an interpretation I have no qualms in applying liberally to my own activities.

Furthermore, although we must not enter our friend's house or stay away overnight to meet up with them, we surely do not even need to meet up with any friend at our chosen destination.

 

[Jamesrob637]

If I live in the North West of England and am thinking about applying for a job in London, from 29th March will I now be permitted to travel down to London to check the location of work, and any potential places to live?

I'd see if you could work from home apart from training and odd days like your review, probation etc. Then you would still enjoy life in a friendly part of the country yet get the London atmosphere from time to time but as bengley said, the travel would be deemed necessary if you wanted to view accommodation.

 

[bengley]

If I travelled a couple of hundred miles to help transport something I've purchased which is currently based there (I need to get it to the place where it will go on to the low loader and it can't be delivered by post!)...would this be deemed a reasonable excuse before 29th March?

And to reduce the chances of getting stopped/asked questions, would it be better to drive down or take the train? I'm just thinking about ANPRS with regards driving.

I've never been stopped driving my car significant distances from home. I have, however been stopped twice en route to work at about half 4 in the morning both times, so I'd say you're probably safe to drive mate.