UKH

Just appeared on leigslation.gov in the last half hour...

At the moment it's a series of amendments to the existing "tiers" legislation (and also to the Coronavirus act that gives PCSO's various extra Covid powers). Main effects...

1. "to visit a public outdoor place for the purposes of open air recreation" is no longer a reasonable excuse.

2. "to visit outdoor attractions at an aquarium, zoo or safari park" etc has also gone.

3. "outdoor sportsgrounds or sports facilities" are no longer public outdoor spaces - think that means you can't meet there or use them for organised activities.

4. Under 18's are no longer exempt; i.e. they can no longer take part in organised outdoor sporting activities.

5. Parent & child groups are no longer exempt from the various restrictions.

6. Xmas tree sellers no longer allowed to remain open 😁

7. All areas in England are Tier 4.

So for anyone think of climbing - the only reasonable excuse for being outside your premises (which includes garden etc) is "that it is reasonably necessary...    ...to take exercise outside". This means that any reasonability criteria applied by the Police (& courts) can only be more severe than before (because there's no longer a "visit a public outdoor place for the purposes of open air recreation" reasonable excuse).

Unlike the Government guidance, travel is still not mentioned at all, but obviously the distance and mode of any travel will impact on any assessment of "reasonably necessary".

Think that covers it - OTB 🛏

In reply to Michael Hood:

I'm glad i'm so unfit that climbing can be unquestionably regarded as exercise. Probably need to skip the easy warm ups in case they look a bit too much like recreation

P.s. Schedule 3A, paragraph 2, sub-paragraph (c) remains untouched:

Exceptions: leaving home

2.—(1) These are the exceptions referred to in paragraph 1.
Exception 1: leaving home necessary for certain purposes

(2) Exception 1 is that it is reasonably necessary for the person concerned (“P”) to leave or be outside the place where P is living (“P’s home”)—

(...)

(c)to take exercise outside—

(i)alone,

(ii)with—

(aa)one or more members of their household, their linked household, or

(bb)where exercise is being taken as part of providing informal childcare for a child aged 13 or under, one or more members of their linked childcare household, or

(iii)in a public outdoor place, with one other person who is not a member of their household, their linked household or their linked childcare household,

In reply to Michael Hood:

I'm confused by point 1

This mean that I can't stroll along the prom with my dog?

The chances of me even seeing a police officer in a town of 300,000 people at most is exceptionally low. I only ever see plod when I'm at work. There are dangerously too few of them nation wide.

In reply to Michael Hood:

Thanks for pointing this out. I'm awfully sorry but I'm not very good at using that site. You wouldn't be good enough to link to the section  regarding: "to visit a public outdoor place for the purposes of open air recreation" would you? Or tell me how to find it?

Many thanks 

In reply to The Lemming:

Walking a dog comes under attending to the excercise of an animal. Which is a different section I believe 

In reply to OneBeardedWalker:

The bit you're referring to has been removed in the latest legislation which for that bit basically says something like "in paragraph 2, sub-paragraph (2), remove section (b) and section (ba)".

In reply to Michael Hood:

Thank you 

In reply to The Lemming:

As well as what joem said - walking your dog is exercise for you - unless a fitness test showed that you were so well conditioned that the walk was doing b**ger all for you 😁 - then you'd probably get in on one of the elite athlete exemptions.

Also, there's nothing about "only 1 outside exercise session/day allowed" - which I seem to remember some people have mentioned - maybe it's in the guidance - but it's not mentioned in the law.

In reply to Michael Hood:

I've been trawling through the gov.uk and the legislation website and it's quite interesting the distinctions. Law is you must not, end of. Guidance is a mix of must not and should not, but that guidance is guided by law, and it's to the relevant law that you would be judged. Presumably that would require testing, in court, as to what is reasonable. 

In reply to Michael Hood:

Just thought I'd add...

My OP to a large extent assumed that "readers" are familiar with the existing legislation; sorry if that wasn't clear.

Technically, we're still in the "Tiers" system. It's just that we've all been put in Tier 4, which has been tightened up by removing some of the exemptions/excuses. I suppose this makes it easier to sort out the legislation to get back into "proper" tiers when things improve - effectively just "reverse" some previous amendments.

Also, the "Tiers" legislation's expiry date has been moved from 2nd February to 31st March. Of course they can just issue further amendments which further extend the expiry as required - however Parliament could decide to debate and reject any amendment which would effectively then stop the original (secondary) legislation (I think the time window to reject the "original" has passed) - but, rejections of secondary legislation are very rare so unlikely to happen. 

I'd be interested to know why the down-votes on the OP which was basically conveying information with not much opinion: was the information wrong? Disagree with how I think it impacts on climbing? Or did you just think I shouldn't have gone to bed then?

In reply to Stuart (aka brt):

Where the guidance would likely be a key reference to that determination as to what is reasonable.

I wonder if any of those who advocate for going beyond the guidance, because it’s weaker than the law, would actually go to court to challenge their FPN, or would they just pay it and start following the guidance more closely?  

In reply to Stuart (aka brt):

Basically that's the way the law in the UK works. Legislation defines the law and the courts finalise any areas where there's ambiguity or judgement required (grey areas).

But, the courts only do that when a case comes to them with a "grey area" disagreement, and any court judgements may or may not then be applicable to other cases - depends on the details.

So in-between, the Police and the CPS will where necessary, apply their own interpretations/judgements. If you accept a fine, or plead guilty to an offence, then you are in effect accepting those interpretations/judgements.

Edit: Of course a relevant test case may not actually get to the courts whilst we're in all of this anyway.

In reply to wintertree:

If I've got it right, when the courts interpret the legislation (which in effect means judges, if juries were involved then judges would guide them on the law), they try to understand what Parliament's intent was - which in effect usually means the government's intent. The guidance would be an indicator of that intent, but would not necessarily be the only indicator - they might take inadvertent tweets by Pritti Patel into account if they were relevant 😁 - and the court might consider why something was in the guidance but not in the legislation.

P.S. Note that I'm capitalising Parliament, but I refuse to give this government the accolade of capitalisation.

In reply to Michael Hood:

Interesting...technically that means walking across the local golf course (which is closed but has a public footpath on it) isn't legal, I guess.  That said, Police generally have a bit of common sense.

In reply to joem:

Though it would be rather difficult to exercise a dog without exercising yourself, unless you tie it to the mirror and drive your car there

In reply to Michael Hood:

It is, and was back in March, only guidance.  I suspect if it was in law, it would be quite hard to codify - for example, if you've already been out for a walk, must you drive to the shop, because if you exercised again you'd commit an offence?

At least Gove has so far kept his gob shut on the one hour limit that never existed.

In reply to Neil Williams:

Yes I’d imagine so however you’re allowed to excercise said dog unlimited times in a day under the guidance. 
It also provides for leaving you local are to care for a horse or similar i presume. 

In reply to Neil Williams:

Looks legal to me, unless you're saying your walk is an organised activity (which it isn't).

In reply to Neil Williams:

Surely the public right of way is still a public open space just not the golf course.

the plod might get suspicious if you have golf clubs with you though.

In reply to Michael Hood:

It's definitely in the guidance:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/national-lockdown-stay-at-home#exercising-and-m...

"This should be limited to once per day, and you should not travel outside your local area."

This would be an example of guidance not backed by law (apparently) that I'd, hypothetically, lose no sleep over disregarding. Someone mentioned dogs get unlimited exercise while humans are asked to limit to once, quite comical!

In reply to Neil Williams:

I have actually seen someone take their dog out of their car and slowly drive down the road, the dog happily following behind (pre-covid and on a common).