Lendal Bridge refunds report “called in”

“Congestion Commission” shelvedtraffic

The Cabinet decision on how refends should be offered to motorists fined for driving over Lendal bridge has been “called in”.

This means that an independent scrutiny committee will decide whether the Cabinets proposals should go ahead (relying on motorists to find out themselves that the refunds are available) or whether the Council should write all who have paid fines offering a refund.

The Scrutiny Management Committee is next scheduled to meet on 8th September

NB. Labour have quietly abandoned their proposal to establish and all party “congestion commission”. The proposal was due to be discussed at a meeting taking place on 9th September. It has now been withdrawn for the agenda with no new date set for its consideration

Lendal bridge refunds policy confirmed

Lendal ManConfusion over process continues

The York Council confirmed yesterday that it will refund the fines levied on Lendal Bridge during the 6 month closure trial.

However controversy continues as the Council does not intend to proactively tell those affected that they are entitled to a refund!

Labour Councillors claim that social and commercial media will be used to alert claimants but – with as long as 12 months having elapsed since some of the fines were issued and in many cases to drivers from other parts of the UK and Europe – most are unlikely to ever hear about the need to apply for a refund.

The Council should agree to write to every driver telling them of their right to claim a rebate and how to go about doing so

The Council have withdrawn their appeal against the “unlawful” ruling on Lendal Bridge.

They are continuing to pursue an appeal on Coppergate where no fine notices have been issued since April.

 

Lendal Bridge legal battle costs taxpayers £700 a week

Labour run York Council’s legal battle over traffic restrictions on Lendal Bridge and Coppergate has cost taxpayers £700 a week, according to figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats.

Lendal Bridge sign

At the end of March a Government Traffic Adjudicator ruled that the council had “no power” to issue fines on Lendal Bridge or Coppergate. Since then, York Council has been contesting the Adjudicator’s ruling on both the schemes.

However, last week the council said it was dropping the Lendal Bridge appeal and only continuing with the Coppergate challenge.

The Lib Dems can now reveal that so far the council has spent £11,330 on the legal battle, with the figure set to continue to rise as the Coppergate row rolls on.

The revelation comes at a time when Labour are refusing to say when their proposal to repay the fines unlawfully imposed on drivers using Lendal Bridge will be refunded.

Despite claims made on TV and in Council media releases that the Council had decided to repay the fines, it emerged at the last Council meeting that no such decision had been made.

A meeting to discuss the proposal – and a move to withdraw the Councils appeal against the traffic adjudicators decision – was promised “shortly” but has still not yet been scheduled.

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Labour unite behind Cabinet flops

……as Labour vote down Acomb regeneration proposal

Labour managed to get enough of their members into the Council chamber tonight to avoid the ignominy of having two Council members sacked from their Cabinet positions.

Cllrs Alexander and Merrett had been widely blamed for the failure of the Lendal Bridge trial with the latter having promised to resign if the Councils action had been proven to be unlawful.

Opposition members pointed out that the withdrawal of the Councils appeal against the traffic adjudicators judgement was an admission of guilt.

Labour were however forced to admit that no decision on refunding fines had actually been taken and their spokesman would only say that a meeting to discuss the proposals would take place “shortly”.

Both the responsible Council member (Levene) in a TV interview, and an official Council Press release issued on Tuesday, had claimed that the “Council had decided to refund the Lendal Bridge fines”.

Both those claims have now been proved to be untrue.

Cllr Levene also said that he didn’t know how much it would cost to refund the Lendal Bridge fines.

Labour went on to vote down proposals to introduce an ambitious regeneration programme for the Acomb Front Street area.

Lendal Bridge councillors face crunch vote

The Labour councillors responsible for the botched Lendal Bridge trial will formally face calls to resign at tomorrow night’s meeting of York’s Full Council.

Quit

Council Leader James Alexander and Cllr Dave Merrett, the Cabinet Member responsible for the trial, will both face a vote to decide whether they keep their jobs.

The move is part of a Liberal Democrat motion which also calls for the 60,000 motorists fined for crossing Lendal Bridge to be repaid automatically without having to apply for a refund.

So far Labour has only said York Council will reimburse people who apply for a repayment.

The motion follows the embarrassing U-Turn last week when Labour announced that it would drop its appeal against a Government Traffic Adjudicator ruling which said the Lendal Bridge closure was unlawful.

In April Cllr Merrett said that if the trial was proved to be unlawful he would resign, telling BBC Radio York: “Yes, I accept that at the end of the day that if we’ve got it wrong to that extent that I’d have to resign”.

In April Cllr Merrett lost responsibility for Transport, but kept his Cabinet post taking control of Environmental Services.

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“Don’t call us” Lendal Bridge plea by York Council

The Council has issued the following statement. Refund_Stamp

It is incorrect as the Council hasn’t yet decided to offer refunds on Lendal bridge fines. At this stage it is merely a proposal from Cllr Levene.

No date has been set for the issue to be formally considered by any of the Council’s decision taking bodies.

The Council statement reads,

The Council has decided to refund people who received a fine during the trial traffic regulation of Lendal Bridge, those who appealed to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal will receive payment from the Council and need take no further action. A refund will be made in all other cases provided a request is made through the council application process. This is due to the clear level of public concern during the trial. It is hoped that this can be seen as a statement of goodwill and we are drawing a line under the matter.

In order to protect the Council against the risk from fraudulent claims a simple application process is currently in development and it is anticipated that this will be launched in the near future. An announcement as to the opening of the application process will be made through the Council website and the Council’s normal communication channels.

Whilst we appreciate that those affected by this process will wish to make their application at the earliest possible date, refunds will only be made when requests are made through the official application process and contacting the Council prior to the opening of the process will not be necessary or assist your claim.

 

Government to give extra £1 million to help sort out York’s transport problems

Lendal Bridge recriminations continue

Lendal bridge without traffic

Lendal bridge without traffic

York been awarded a further £1million by the Department for Transport as a dispute about who paid for the Lendal Bridge trial has surfaced.

Refund decision- who decides and when?

None of the Council’s decision making bodies has considered a proposal to repay Lendal Bridge fines. It is merely a proposal to creep out for a “behind closed doors” meeting of the Labour Group. It is a key decision but does not appear in the Councils forward plan. The last time the Council considered the issue Labour Councillors combined to vote down a request for an independent scrutiny review of the failings of, and lessons to be learned from, the Lendal and Coppergate trials.

Now a decision date will have to be set and a report on the methodology – and costs – of setting up a refund system will have to be written and published. The ultimate success of a proposal to repay fines is not in doubt, as both Opposition parties (LibDem and Tory) have previously called for the refunds to be made. There is considerable doubt, though, about when such payments might start and what paperwork vehicle owners may be expected to complete.

How much did it cost and who pays?

The present government allows Local Authorities a large measure of devolution on transport spending priorities and last year the Councils Labour Leadership chose to spend some grant money on access restriction hardware (such as ANPR cameras).

This totalled around £100,000 and is money that has now effectively been lost. The latest grant allocation (see below) was made before the York Council made its announcement about refunding Lendal Bridge fines, so it remains to be seen whether the fiasco will adversely impact on future transport funding allocations for the City.

The vast majority of the costs of the Lendal Bridge and Coppergate schemes were funded by fine income. The detail was reported to the Cabinet earlier in the month Click here for report Para 23 makes it clear that £1.756 million in fine income had been received by the end of March. Administrative costs were £718,000. In the main, those were the costs of enforcement and processing the FPNs. The Council has never revealed how much it was charged by the Peterborough based company that it used to process the fine notifications.

LTP3 – What did it say?

Some commentators are also claiming the the Local Transport Plan (LTP3), submitted to government in 2010 when the Council was LibDem led, somehow prompted the Lendal Bridge access restriction trial. The plan can still be viewed on the Council’s web site click here

The Plan does suggest a trial which would have given public transport priority on Ouse Bridge (not Lendal Bridge) in the medium term (2019). However that was conditional on other network improvements being completed – notably to to the northern by pass and to Park and Ride facilities – in the interim. The Labour Leadership must accept full responsibility for trying to bounce an ill considered Lendal Bridge scheme, onto an unsuspecting public, before even the two new Park and Ride sites had been completed.

£1 million more from Government

We hope that the Council will get back to basics and ensure that there is full public discussion of their plans for the use of this money. They have gone backwards recently with the removal of card payment options at the Maygate car park, travellers can no longer look on the web to see which car parks are full and on street visual display boards are often not working.

Well used sub-urban bus stops still don’t have real time “next bus arriving” screens yet.

All are issues that need addressing before anymore money is squandered on “vanity” projects
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Lendal Bridge fines to be refunded

 

Coppergate fines stand – for now

Lendal bridge notice

In an amazing U turn – before even the results of their appeal against the traffic adjudicator ruling have been revealed – the York Council’s Labour Leadership has announced that they will refund over £1 million in fines levied against motorists who used Lendal Bridge during the ill fated access restriction trial.

They have yet to submit the proposal to a formal Council decision meeting.

The Council have already spent over £700,000 – of the £1.8 million fine income that it raised from Lendal Bridge and Coppergate – on administering the trial, so taxpayers are in for a hefty hit.

The Council only broke even on its budget during the last financial year because of the ANPR camera bonanza.

The failed experiment ultimately led to the demotion of Labour Councillor Dave Merrett, although he still holds a £20,000 a year Cabinet job.

Residents will now be looking at the future of Council leader James Alexander who bears ultimate responsibility for the financial and organisational disaster.

The Council have not said how motorists will be able to claim a rebate.

There is a suspicion that visitors – particularly those from overseas – may never hear about the change of heart. They may continue to be out of pocket as a result of the Councils unlawful actions.

Last month Labour Councillor Stephen Burton (Westfield) led an attempt to block plans to have an independent inquiry into the fiasco.

When unveiled a year ago, Liberal Democrats opposed the trial saying that it was badly timed and poorly executed.

In September 2013 (after only a few weeks of the trial) Liberal Democrats called for it to be abandoned against a background of huge enforcement issues.

If the Council had accepted then that they had made a major mistake, taxpayers would not now be facing a £1million bill.
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Labour block Lendal Bridge Inquiry

Labour councillors last night formally vetoed Liberal Democrat calls for an inquiry into the Lendal Bridge trial.

Lendal Bridge signs A scrutiny committee review of the controversial trial was requested by Lib Dem councillors Ann Reid and Keith Aspden. But, at last night’s ‘Economic & City Development Overview & Scrutiny Committee’ Labour councillors used their majority to reject the Lib Dem proposal.

Last week Labour leader Cllr James Alexander and Cllr Dave Merrett (the cabinet member responsible for the trial) publicly opposed calls for a review.

Cllr Ian Cuthbertson, who sits on the committee for the Lib Dems, commented:

“It is hugely disappointing that Labour councillors have blocked an inquiry into the Lendal Bridge trial. Liberal Democrats wanted a proper cross-party review of the trial to ensure that unanswered questions are addressed and lessons are learnt.

“Whatever the rights and wrongs of having the trial in the first place, it is clear that it was very badly implemented and managed. Poor signage meant that over 50,000 motorists were fined, the closure caused increased congestion in other parts of the city, then it was ruled ‘unlawful’ by the Government’s Traffic Adjudicator.

We need to understand why these things happened, so that future attempts at tackling congestion do not end in similar failure.

“It is hard to escape the conclusion that Labour councillors cynically blocked the scrutiny review to shield their Leader and the Cabinet Member responsible from proper public scrutiny. If this is the case, it is clearly an unacceptable approach which does our city and its residents a huge disservice.”

Labour’s controversial closure of Lendal Bridge was abandoned in April after overwhelming opposition from residents and businesses and after a Government Traffic Adjudicator ruled the closure was unlawful.

The Economic & City Development Overview & Scrutiny Committee voted 4 to 3 against holding the review with Labour councillors Anna Semlyen, Neil Barnes, Stephen Burton and Joe Riches voting against.

A video of the meeting can be found here: http://www.york.gov.uk/webcasts

Lendal Bridge – Council Leadership move to block scrutiny of their decisions

Lendal bridge notice

Papers published for a meeting of the Council scrutiny committee, which covers transport issues, today reveal that the Labour Leadership are trying to block an inquiry into their handling of the Lendal Bridge closure.

Residents in general – and the 70,000 motorists fined “unlawfully” by the Council for using Lendal Bridge and Coppergate in particular- had been expecting the answers to a string of questions about the muddle and confusion which surrounded the ill-judged trial.

The Council Leader describes the request as “politics not scrutiny” and says that “an independently chaired congestion commission” should report first. As any such commission would take months – if not years – to report, this is clearly an attempt to bury the issue until after the local elections which are scheduled to take place next May.

Similarly the disgraced Cabinet member, who was responsible for the shambles, argues that a review is “premature” and should await the result of the Council’s appeal against the traffic adjudicator’s judgement. As this appeal expected to be resolved within the next 2 months, it does not seem be a valid reason to delay setting up a review committee.

The committee meets next week to decide on its work programme for the coming year.

Although there is a Labour majority on the committee, they will not be able to deny answers to residents legitimate questions for ever.

The new Council, which will be elected in May 2015, will be able to set up an Inquiry when it takes office.

There will be nowhere for the former Labour Leadership to hide then.