Applicant company seeking judicial review of council’s decision to bring into operation controlled parking zones – Whether council failed to carry out proper consultation prior to making order – Whether substantial prejudice caused by any failure of council to comply with consultation requirement – Application dismissed
In July 1994 the council’s technical services committee (the committee) authorised an informal consultation exercise to gauge support for the imposition of a controlled parking zone (CPZ one). The statutory consultation for the scheme ended on April 7 1995. Although the council intended to implement CPZ one it was stalled by an injunction pending legal proceedings against the decision to implement it. In August 1996 there was an informal consultation about another CPZ (CPZ two). There were notices, an exhibition and three public meetings. In September 1996 the statutory period of consultation started and the consultees included the applicant. In early October 1996 the applicant handed in petitions and letters of objection and a meeting took place at Upton Centre at which concerns, objections and alternatives were raised by, inter alia, the applicant. On October 14 1996 the statutory consultation ended.
However, in November 1996 the committee instructed officers to carry out further consultation with residents and traders of the Upton area to determine, where necessary, improvements to the CPZ two, including measures to improve arrangements for Sundays (the instructions). In response to the instructions, an officer informed the committee that, despite attempts to contact the applicant and arrange a meeting, he had been unsuccessful and therefore it had not been possible to carry out the instructions. On April 7 1997 the council made CPZ order two. The applicant sought judicial review of the council’s decision claiming that the council had failed to comply with section 45(3) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 in that it had not consulted the applicant and other interested parties, thereby causing substantial prejudice to the applicants and other parties’ interests.
Held The application was refused.
1. The council were not obliged to accept objections nor to give up their intentions; they were only required to consult and to consider the objections. The court was not entitled to comment on the merits of a CPZ order since parliament had entrusted that decision to the council and the court was only entitled to inquire whether the proposed CPZs had been lawfully made.
2. On the evidence it was not possible to find that there had been compliance by the officers with the instructions. That failure indicated that there was a failure to consult, since the committee would not have instructed further consultation if they had not thought it necessary. Therefore there had not been consultation as contemplated by section 45 of the 1984 Act.
3. However, the interest of the applicant had not been substantially prejudiced by the failure to consult. Everything which could have been said had been said and there was nothing which the applicant could have said which would have changed the result. Accordingly, the application was to be refused.
Martin Jones (instructed by Markand & Co) appeared for the applicant; Timothy Straker QC (instructed by the solicitor to Newham London Borough Council) appeared for the respondents.
