CROYDON IN CRISIS: A High Court case claims the authority has misused its powers over Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, with lawyers for the council expected to defend the Mayor’s manifesto U-turn by claiming that ‘election promises are not a binding contract’. By STEVEN DOWNES
Tory target: before the 2022 Mayoral election, Jason Perry sid he would remove Croydon’s LTNs
Tory Mayor Jason Perry’s crisis-hit council has an appointment before a High Court judge this week, as Croydon’s policies on Low Traffic Neighbourhoods come under legal scrutiny.
Things are not looking good for the prospects of Perry’s council, following recent Judicial Reviews on other traffic-reduction schemes, such as in West Dulwich, where the scheme was deemed unlawful and Lambeth Council was ordered to remove it immediately.
The High Court ruled there that the council had not properly considered residents’ concerns during the implementation of the LTN, and Lambeth was ordered to pay £35,000 towards the legal costs of the West Dulwich Action Group who brought the case.
In Croydon’s case, the complaint brought to the High Court centres on remarks made by the pro-pollution, anti-cycling Mayor Perry during a public appearance at a far-right ginger group, when he was challenged over his failure to deliver on an election promise to have the borough’s LTNs removed.
Perry ‘fessed up, saying that his cash-strapped council needed the millions of pounds in fines income the schemes had been generating. The problem with that, however, is that income-generation is not a legal reason for having such road schemes. Croydon’s roads department projected annual income from fines from motorists for driving without permits through the LTNs or school streets of up to £12million.
Tory attack paper: how the Sunday Torygraph reported on Tory Mayor Perry’s U-turn
Low Traffic Neighbourhoods were introduced from 2020 initially as a response to covid, with grant funding from Boris Johnson’s government, to encourage walking and cycling and to reduce rat-running by speeding cars through residential streets.
Pandering to the road haulage and motoring lobby during the 2022 election campaign, Perry said, “These LTN schemes have increased levels of traffic and congestion, increased journey times, increased pollution, impacted on business and fined residents for driving on their own roads… These schemes are having a huge detrimental impact on our communities.”
Croydon’s prospects at the High Court this week are not good, not least because the council’s lawyers’ best line of defence against the claim is, according to a Katharine Street source, to argue that “election promises are not a binding contract”.
The source said, “So Croydon Council’s case hinges on something we all know: politicians tell lies to get elected.”
The case being brought against Croydon seeks to force politicians, even third-rate ones like Perry, to honour their election promises. It would represent a significant legal precedent if successful.
The case has been brought by the shadowy Open Our Roads organisation, which has kept under wraps the identities of its major source of funding. In its early days it gratefully accepted donations from a leading figure in ABD – the Association of Bad Drivers – based in Chislehurst.
Open Our Roads initially campaigned against LTNs in the Crystal Palace and South Norwood areas.
The High Court case has been brought in the name of Open Our Roads member, Karen Lawrence, who is claiming that the council has misused their powers under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 in respect of revenue generation.
In the skeleton arguments presented before the court date by lawyers representing Open Our Roads, it states: “Jason Perry is [Croydon]’s elected mayor. Before being elected mayor on 5th May 2022, he campaigned based on reversing the traffic schemes. As mayor, he had full power to review – and reverse – any prior decision of [the council].
“There has always been considerable opposition to the schemes from residents, who dispute that worthwhile environmental benefits will be gained while considerable practical inconvenience will be caused to residents and vehicular traffic in and passing through the borough.
Vandals: anti-LTN protestors often took matters into their own hands in South Norwood and Upper Norwood
“Moreover, the driver behind the schemes is considered by [Ms Lawrence] and many residents to be financial to benefit [Croydon Council], which is experiencing financial constraints…
“… On January 10th 2023, at a community meeting… the mayor answered a question publicly about the schemes and left no ambiguity in his response, saying that the reason the experimental schemes had been implemented was because the budget depended on income from those schemes…
“After the scheme was approved on February 14th 2024, The Telegraph published an article on February 17th 2024. It reported that the mayor had reversed his earlier opposition to the scheme following predictions [Croydon] would make £10million from fines…
“The mayor had been given the opportunity to respond to the article by the newspaper and is reported to have said on February 16th that: ‘The decision to introduce LTN schemes was made by the previous [Labour] administration before I was elected as mayor. The council’s budget is predicated, partially of course, on that decision, and I do not feel that I am in a position to reverse it’.
“… An examination of the timeline shows that before and after he became mayor, Jason Perry had opposed the scheme but, once elected, felt unable to reverse the earlier decisions of [the council] because of serious financial consequences for [Croydon]’s budget.”
Croydon Council’s case is not helped because of the lack of robust preparation work conducted before the initially experimental schemes were implemented.
The council has admitted that it had no data on traffic levels on LTN boundary roads from before the scheme was implemented, it lacked pre-scheme local data for walking and cycling, and it admitted that air quality on the residential side streets within the LTN met legal limits before the scheme was introduced.
With Perry installed as Mayor, Croydon Council went ahead and made six of its seven experimental LTNs permanent.
Citing the legal precedent of Vestey v Inland Revenue from 1979, Open Our Roads’ lawyers contend that, “A local authority should not misuse a statute aimed at defined purposes for another (ulterior) purpose where that purpose is to raise revenue. Otherwise, it would be tantamount to taxation… Taxes are imposed upon subjects by Parliament.”
Doing the Lambeth walk?: How The Times reports today the latest twist in the West Dulwich LTN tale
Where this all gets more broadly significant is in the skeleton argument presented on the matter of election promises and lying politicians.
“Legitimate expectation can arise when a local authority makes residents a promise,” lawyers for Open Our Roads have submitted to the High Court.
“It is in the interests of good administration that an authority should act fairly and implement its promise, so long as implementation does not interfere with its statutory duty.”
Now wouldn’t that be something?
This all comes on top of claims that Rezina Chowdhury, deputy leader of Labour-controlled Lambeth Council, may have misled the judge in the recent West Dulwich LTN High Court hearing.
A member of a residents’ group there resorted to secret recordings at the councillor’s monthly surgery, which caught Chowdhury saying that she’d ignored resident emails and recorded-delivery letters because she thought the group acting against LTNs was acting in bad faith.
But The Times reports today that Chowdhury’s evidence to the High Court included her statement, “I do not consider there has been at any point a ‘refusal to engage with those who might be critical of what the council was proposing.”
Lawyers could expect a field day when sitting down to compare the fickle, and thick, Mayor Perry’s public statements against anything he submits to court this week when under solemn oath.
Read more: #TheLabourFiles: Source of hacked data worked for Evans
Read more: Removal of LTNs was unnecessary says cycling campaign
Read more: The next battle in the culture wars? Traffic bollards
Read more: London’s toxic air is ‘a public health emergency’ says charity
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Sing this to the tune of the similar song from the “Joseph” musical
Poor, poor Perry
What’cha going to do?
Things look bad for you, hey,
What’cha going to do?
“The council has admitted that it had no data on traffic levels on LTN boundary roads from before the scheme was implemented, it lacked pre-scheme local data for walking and cycling, and it admitted that air quality on the residential side streets within the LTN met legal limits before the scheme was introduced.” Says it all.
Croydon council might not have data, but the Department for Transport does, with its Road traffic statistics.
For example, for the Parsons Mead “Croydon healthy neighbourhood”, one of the boundary roads is Roman Way. “Manual traffic count” data shows that in 2019, the annual average daily flow of motor vehicles was over 40,000, with 142 cyclists. In 2023 the figures were 34,227 and 219 respectively.
With the Dalmally Road CHN, Lower Addiscombe Road is a boundary road. In 2016, a manual count there found an annual average daily flow of nearly 20,000 motor vehicles, with 247 cyclists. In 2022, the figures were fewer than 18,000 and 530 respectively.
Those figures contradict the claims of traffic displacement and increased congestion.