The Road Traffic Regulation (Northern Ireland) Order 1997

Parking devices for designated parking places

21.—(1) Any power of the Department under Article 15(1) to impose charges for vehicles left in a designated parking place shall include power to require those charges, or any part of them, to be paid by means of the hire or purchase in advance, or the use, of parking devices in accordance with any relevant provision of an order under that Article.

(2) The provision which may be made by virtue of Article 16(3) includes provision—

(a) for regulating the issue, use and surrender of parking devices;

(b) for requiring vehicles to display parking devices when left in any parking place in respect of which parking devices may be used;

(c) without prejudice to the generality of sub-paragraph (b), for regulating the manner in which parking devices are to be displayed or operated;

(d) for regulating the use, and the manner of use, of apparatus designed to be used in connection with parking devices;

(e) for treating—

(i) the indications given by a parking device; or

(ii) the display or the failure to display a parking device on or in any vehicle left in any parking place, as evidence of such facts and for such purposes as may be provided by the order;

(f) for the refund, in such circumstances and in such manner as may be specified in the order, of the whole or part of the amount of any charge paid in advance in respect of a parking device;—

(g) for the payment of a deposit in respect of the issue of a parking device and for the repayment of the whole or part of any such deposit.

(3) For the purposes of paragraph (2)—

(a) the reference to parking meters in Article 16(2)(c) and (d) shall include references to the apparatus referred to in paragraph (2)(d); and

(b) the reference in Article 16(2)(d) to the insertion in a parking meter of coins or bank notes additional to those inserted by way of payment of any charge or to the insertion or re-insertion in a parking meter of a credit or debit card additional to the original insertion of such a card shall include (so far as is appropriate) a reference to insertions or re-insertions in any such apparatus of parking devices additional to the original insertion of those devices.

(4) In this Article and Article 22 (offences in connection with parking devices) “parking device” means either a card, disc, token, meter, permit, stamp or other similar device, whether used in a vehicle or not, which, being used either by itself or in conjunction with any such apparatus as is referred to in paragraph (2)(d), indicates or causes to be indicated the payment of a charge, and—

(a) the period in respect of which it has been paid and the time of the beginning or end of the period; or

(b) whether or not the period for which it has been paid or any further period has elapsed; or

(c) the period for which the vehicle in relation to which the parking device is used is permitted to park in the parking place, and the time of the beginning or end of that period; or

(d) whether or not the period for which the vehicle in relation to which the device is used is permitted to park in the parking place or any further period has elapsed;

or any other device of such description as may be prescribed for the purposes of this Article and Article 22.

(5) Regulations under paragraph (4) which revoke or amend previous regulations under that paragraph may make such saving and transitional provision as appears to the Department to be necessary or expedient.