Westminster council have been ordered to reconsider a decision to remove barriers restricting traffic through two central London residential squares.
The High Court held that the council had failed to carry out adequate consultation before removing the barriers from Montpelier and Trevor Squares, which lie on the boundary between Westminster borough and Kensington and Chelsea.
Munby J said that the council’s decision to consult only on alternative options that did not involve retaining the barriers was “unfair” because, although they canvassed the views of all interested parties, they did so only in relation to a restricted range of options.
In allowing the challenge by local resident body Montpeliers and Trevors Association, the judge also attacked the council’s “cavalier” procedures in the run-up to the hearing.
The judge said that the council’s failure to instruct solicitors until two days before the hearing was “utterly lamentable”. Although ruling that the council could still participate in the proceedings, the judge said that they had “wholly failed to comply” with procedural requirements.
He added: “The City is an experienced litigant. It has treated the court, but, more importantly, the claimant, which, after all, represents some of the City’s own citizens and council tax payers, in a cavalier and almost contemptuous fashion.”
Westminster council erected the experimental barriers along the two squares in 2002, following complaints by residents over the substantial volumes of through traffic using the roads as “rat runs”.
However, in January 2003, Kensington and Chelsea council formally objected to the scheme, claiming that it affected roads within their own borough.
In December, after consulting on a range of alternative options, Westminster council chose to remove the barriers, and passed the City of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea (Prescribed Routes)(No 1) Traffic Order 2004.
The association subsequently brought judicial review proceedings, claiming that consultation had not been taken at a “formative stage”. It claimed that the council had “predetermined against the option of retaining the barriers, and that option had simply been excluded from consultation”.
In quashing the December 2003 decision and ordering Westminster council to conduct a fresh public consultation, Munby J said: “Fairness, in my judgment, required that there should be a process of consultation in which those being consulted could express their views on all the various options. That never took place.”
R (on the application of Montpeliers and Trevors Association) v Westminster City Council Administrative Court (Munby J) 13 January 2005.
Gillian Carrington (instructed by Lodders) appeared for the claimant; Thomas Cosgrove (instructed by the solicitor to Westminster City Council) appeared for the defendants.
References: EGi Legal News 13/01/05
