£162,000 refunded so far to motorists who were illegally fined.

It looks like the Labour Councillors who were responsible for the £1.3 million Lendal Bridge closure fiasco will not get away scot free.

In August, when Labour still had a Council majority, they voted not to undertake a review of what went wrong with the trial closure.

Now a report, suggesting that a full and open inquiry into the failure should take place, is to be considered on 12^th November.

• Residents will be eager to learn how a scheme, that was obviously failing only one month into the trial, was allowed to continue for another 6 months.
• They will be expecting the legal advice received by the Council at each stage to be made public.
• They will want to know what secret meetings took place and how they influenced the Councils position.
• They will look very carefully at the public statements made by officials and Council members in March and April 2014 – after the enforcement arrangements had been found to be unlawful – and which gave the impression that the cameras were still being used for enforcement purposes.
• The committee will also no doubt wish to look in detail at the costs that were incurred, not least those that accumulated during an ill considered attempt to appeal against the decision of the Traffic Penalty Tribunal Adjudicator

Most of all they will be looking to the Council to remove its arbitrary December deadline for refund applications – from those fined unlawfully – and to finally agree to write directly to all those affected telling them of their right to claim a refund.

So far 7,783 refund claims have been processed.

To date a total of £162k has been refunded as part of the refund process.

However, we understand that some claims have been refused and information about how many – and why – is urgently being sought by LibDem Councillors.

Income from the Lendal Bridge trial totalled £1,378,000. There was administrative expenditure totalling £527k which primarily covered the cost of processing penalty charge notices. As part of the year end accounts the Council made provision of £708,000 to cover the refund penalty charge notices.

Separately the report confirms that the Adjudicator has still not dealt with an appeal against his decision on Coppergate. No camera enforcement of the Coppergate restrictions is currently taking place.

Cllr Andrew Waller – the new chair of theEconomic & City Development Scrutiny Committee which will consider the report next week – commented:

“I have asked that the Scrutiny Committee is able to vote in an open way to have the scrutiny of this project, and to reverse the blocks that were placed on this in the summer.”

“There are lessons that need to be learned from the closure. Information needs to be recorded whilst it is still relatively fresh in the minds and emails of officers and Cabinet members. I appreciate that there is a limited amount of time left in the remainder of the council year, but efficient and effective scrutiny could take place as most of the key people involved are within the council.”