mike wilson wrote: > In the UK, many school grounds are the subject of byelaws > that prevent trespassing and provide for quite severe > sanctions for those who transgress.
The school my three go to had a problem with certain individuals a year or so ago and Police made a random appearance at school times, alongside a teacher. The gates are closed during school hours but when they are open, it provides a cut through to two different roads, which is quite a saving in distance for nearby resident pedestrians. Sadly, few now take this cut through as teaching/school staff often approach people they don't recognise as parents and find out if they have a reason to be on school grounds, and just cutting through isn't a reason to be on the property. On one hand, as a parent of primary school age children, I think this is a good idea, but I really don't like innocent locals saving a five minute walk being treated as potential trouble. The photography issue has been raised more than once and I still take pictures on occasion on school grounds, but I do try to just capture my own children in those images. Within the school, for plays or such, it was written in a newsletter a while back that photography wasn't permitted. It has had no effect whatsoever on cameras and video recorders, and no one has been approached or the subject raised before the event by a teacher presenting the performance even once. > Again in the UK, many of these malls are on public land that > has been leased/sold to private developers who have produced > their own rules for behaviour on the premises. By entering > the premises you implicitly agree to abide by those rules. > Not sure if that has been tested in court. Some transport enthusiasts were stopped a while back from taking pictures of some routes that had vintage buses working through a shopping centres grounds not that long ago (Lakeside in Essex) and I really can't see what they are doing by stopping folk openly taking photographs from a safe position - I'll give a nod to safety, in that you don't want large moving vehicles and pedestrians mixing on carriageways - but anyone wanting to take pictures, will take them from a 'phone etc. I expect for good quality pictures you could easily modify a bag to take an SLR and use a remote shutter release. The point is the ones openly taking pictures aren't the ones that should concern the owners of these sites! Malcolm
