(17 Feb 2021, 11:45 am)streetdeckfan wrote When you look at the restrictions, you really need to check if they say you 'should' do something, or 'must' do something. There's a massive legal difference between the two.

"You should minimise time spent outside your home, but you can leave your home to exercise. This should be limited to once per day, and you should not travel outside your local area"
Basically, legally you can ignore all of that.
You can spend as much time as you want outside of your home (as long as it's for one of the permitted reasons), you can leave the house as many times as you want, and you can leave your 'local area'. 

But how do you define your local area? I'm in Bishop, does that mean I can't go to Durham or Darlington, or even Spennymoor? Or does staying within County Durham count as 'local'.
Or, since the councils seem to love the idea of the North East acting as one when it comes to applying restrictions, does that mean I can go to Newcastle? 


Then we also have the loophole of leaving home for 'work'.
If I decide I want to go self employed as a transport photographer, and set myself up as a sole trader.
I'm technically doing 'work', so does that mean it's alright to go out and take photos of buses?

The guidance defines what they mean by local (someone quoted it a few messages up this page) and it is actually significanly more restrictive than all the examples you have given.  Basically, it would mean your neighbourhood within Bishop, or, at a push, the whole of Bishop itself.

Sadly no amount of legislation is ever going to cover every eventuality and as long as people look for and exploit loopholes, we will continue to pingpong in and out of lockdowns and tiered restrictions.  The basic principle of 'is it essential' really isn't hard to grasp.  Regardless of how clever an argument someone can make around why they aren't technically in breech of the letter of the regulations, going out for non-essential purposes (which standing around photographing buses most certainly is) is very clearly the opposite of the public health message and shows a lack of any regard for social responsibility.