Lib Dem council's LTNs are against the law, say campaigners

Yahoo

24-05-2025

A Liberal Democrat council's low traffic neighbourhood (LTN) may be against the law, campaigners have said.
Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES) council has been warned that it faces legal action if it presses on with an 'experimental' LTN in Bath's Sydney Place area.
Councillors have pledged to make the scheme permanent, claiming it provides environmental and safety benefits.
But after the High Court struck down a similar scheme in Lambeth earlier this month, Bath residents are now threatening legal action against the local authority.
It comes after Nigel Farage's Reform UK party pledged to axe LTNs in all of the councils it controls and to block new ones.
An LTN is where streets are blocked off to traffic. Advocates of such schemes say they improve air quality and make road safer for pedestrians.
The schemes can be hugely unpopular because they often drive up traffic congestion on neighbouring roads.
Locals next to an LTN elsewhere in Bath measured a 700 per cent increase in traffic passing a nearby primary school.
The United Sydney Unliveable Neighbourhoods Group (Unsung) has instructed a lawyer to write to the council, asking it to withdraw the LTN because it failed to listen to local objections.
First installed under a so-called 'experimental traffic restriction order', the Sydney Place LTN was originally meant to be temporary while council officials assessed if it was worth keeping.
A failure by Lambeth Council, in the London borough's West Dulwich area, to listen to residents' concerns led to an LTN being declared unlawful by a High Court judge earlier this month.
Lambeth officials may now have to rip out the obstructions blocking roads that have been subjected to the LTN – something that Bath campaigners now hope they can force their council to do.
Neil McCabe, a spokesman for Unsung, said: 'B&NES has a track record of ignoring residents' groups' concerns when it implements ill-thought-out LTNs.
'The West Dulwich court case has now established that doing so is illegal. B&NES now needs to reverse any LTN with less than 50 per cent support from all affected residents, not just the few benefitting from the LTN.'
Unsung's letter, seen by The Telegraph, alleges that the western England council's actions 'are exactly paralleled' by how the London council behaved towards residents.
People living near the LTN expressed mistrust in 'the council's skewed consultation process' and separately petitioned the local authority to abandon the scheme.
A total of 779 locals are said to have objected to the Sydney Place LTN, with the letter adding: 'Of note is that a greater number of residents took the time to sign the formal objections than voted for the LTN in the official consultation.'
Last year, Manda Rigby, the council's cabinet member for transport, vowed to install further LTNs with no further say for local residents.
She said in a YouTube video last year: 'We are very aware that there are strong feelings both for and against the experimental traffic regulation order and we have really carefully considered whether or not to reconsult, before relaying the new experimental traffic regulation order.
'We've decided against this, because over the last 18 months, we have designed, in consultation with our communities, four schemes that are all going to go to trial, so we can monitor what impact they have before we actually decide whether or not to make them permanent.'
Her vow could now bring the council into conflict with the High Court.
Ruling against Labour-controlled Lambeth council earlier in May, Mr Justice Smith said the authority was guilty of a 'serious failing' after it ignored an 'impressive' report that warned street closures in south London could lead to increased congestion and pollution.
He also found the local authority had given a 'masterclass in selective partial reporting' after a council document failed to record how a public consultation about the West Dulwich LTN engendered tremendous 'hostility' from local people.
A spokesman for Bath and North East Somerset council said: 'We have received correspondence and are considering it but will make no further comment at this stage.'
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