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news
Shoreham_by_cycle_protest_ride (Laura Laker)Cycling UK wins appeal to secure judicial review of removal of West Sussex bike lane
Cycling UK has won an appeal against the decision of a High Court judge to refuse the charity permission to seek a judicial review of West Sussex County Council’s decision to remove a popular emergency cycle lane in Shoreham-by-Sea.
The pop-up infrastructure featured last year in a Department for Transport (DfT) video showcasing emergency active travel projects funded by the government and being implemented by councils across England in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Installed with the help of £781,000 in funding from the DfT’s Emergency Active Travel Fund, work on the segregated lanes on Upper Shoreham Road began in September last year and saw levels of cycling treble, with the facility particularly popular during the afternoon school run.
However, before it was fully completed, West Sussex County Council’s cabinet member for highways, Roger Elkins, ordered the removal of the lanes, despite the council’s scrutiny committee voting 6:2 for him to reconsider his decision.
A Freedom of Information request by local campaign group Shoreham-By-Cycle later revealed that he had never officially visited the facility prior to ordering its removal.
In its application for a judicial review of the decision, Cycling UK had argued that the council:
failed to take into account or comply with statutory guidance issued under the Traffic Management Act
acted irrationally given that WSCC’s own information did not support the reasons given for removal of the cycle lane and
breached the public sector equality duty (PSED), particularly given that it had information showing the scheme was especially beneficial for children accessing local secondary schools.
However, in a High Court hearing on 26 May, Mr Justice Lane refused Cycling UK’s applications for permission to pursue the judicial review.
The charity learned earlier this month that its appeal of that decision to the Court of Appeal had been successful.
Duncan Dollimore, the charity’s head of campaigns and advocacy, said: “Cycling UK is delighted the Court of Appeal agreed that the issues raised in this case, especially the requirement for highway authorities to properly consider the government’s statutory guidance, must be fully considered.
“The reallocation of road space to people waking and cycling is a key element of the government’s statutory guidance to reallocate road space for cycling and walking,” he continued.
“Cycling UK believes West Sussex County Council failed to have regard to or comply with that guidance when making the decision to remove the cycle lane.
“This case has implications beyond Shoreham, because if councils can ignore this guidance with impunity, the government’s ‘Gear Change’ vision to get more people walking and cycling will be stuck in first gear.
“Councils should not be at liberty to ignore national policy commitments and carry on regardless, prioritising motor traffic at the expense of active travel while paying lip service to their own sustainability, environmental and climate-change commitments,” Dollimore added.
The costs of the appeal, as with those of the original action, are being borne by Cycling UK’s Cyclists’ Defence Fund, which it says “helps fight significant legal cases involving cyclists and cycling, especially those which could set important precedents for the future and could affect the safety of all cyclists.”
As we reported yesterday, next week sees the conclusion of an engagement period over a six-mile cycle route elsewhere in West Sussex, between Chichester and Emsworth, which is being funded by National Highways (formerly Highways England).
> Last chance to give views on planned major West Sussex cycle route
However, the council will not be getting any active travel cash from central government this year as a direct result of its removal of the cycle lane in Shoreham-by-Sea.
In June, transport minister Chris Heaton-Harris wrote to West Sussex County Council to inform it that it would not be eligible to apply for DfT funding for active travel schemes during 2021/22.
He told Paul Marshall, the leader of the Conservative-run council that “the schemes delivered under tranche 1 of the Emergency Active Travel Fund were not allowed to be fully tested and/or optimised before the schemes were removed.
“This was not a good use of public money and means that your authority will not be invited to bid for any new capital funding this year.”
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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9 comments
Apologies if I've overlooked an earlier report on this, but why is it the job of Cycling UK to take local councils to court? I think CUK's stance is reasonable, but shouldn't central government be be knocking heads together in local government? Perhaps I'm being naive.
From https://www.cyclinguk.org/about
"Cycling UK has championed the cause of cycling for more than 140 years. We promote all forms of cycling, protect the interests of existing and would-be cyclists, and inspire people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities to discover the joys of cycling.
As an independent, democratic and expert organisation, our activities reflect the commitment of our members, volunteers and partners to make cycling mainstream, making a lasting difference to the lives of individuals and communities."
Does that answer your question?
Also, the article above states:
The costs of the appeal, as with those of the original action, are being borne by Cycling UK’s Cyclists’ Defence Fund, which it says “helps fight significant legal cases involving cyclists and cycling, especially those which could set important precedents for the future and could affect the safety of all cyclists.”
Brilliant news! Well done CUK, as a member, I'm proud that you managed to win this case. OK, there's still a long way to go, but the council would appear to be foolish to continue to waste their tax-payers' money fighting it.
Well I'd argue councils should always fully defend against any judicial review that is brought against them simply because the decision that gets made is fully backed by the highest courts in the land.
And it's a bad precedent to set imo and bad for a democratic process if decisions a council make can be overturned simply through continued threats of legal action. Some vexatious litigants could literally paralyse councils abilities to make decisions purely on the basis they dont agree with them.
That's certainly a valid viewpoint, but in the circumstances, I'm afraid I disagree. It is pretty clear that the decision to remove the cycle lane was not reasonable, logical or based on the facts and went against the wishes of the council's own scrutiny committee. It would appear that the decision was taken with no regard to the council's policies on transport, the environment, health, climate change and pollution, to list only the most obvious, and is therefore perverse, and it seems likely that a legal challenge will succeed.
Wasn't Roger Elkins removed from his position soon after his appalling decision? I remember that he was a petrolhead.
If the council wishes to save its tax-payers' money, they will take legal advice about whether it is worth fighting this case, rather than throwing away more money on a whim.
Unfortunately councils seem to tend to fight these things to the last breath. Optimistically I'd say because they believe similarly to Awavey. Pessimistically I'd say it's because they are incapable of admitting a mistake
No one is suggesting that councils should give in to vexatious litigants (who are forbidden from starting civil cases anyway).
If the council has clearly got it wrong, it should NOT waste time and legal fees fighting a losing case to the end.
the issue is you believe the council just made the wrong decision, not that they made a decision, the wrong way.
whilst I believe its very important to test in court that principle that councils can make decisions we wholly disagree with, if they make them following the correct process, as else we could see lots of council decisions referred to judicial reviews, maybe opponents of cycle lanes would see it as a means to overturn decisions to implement stuff they dislike if they feel councils have shortcut the correct process, should councils waste taxpayers money defending that or just acquiesce to them too ?
and I always go back to specifically on this Shoreham case, it was West Sussex councils highways department who recommended the lanes removal, they produced a report for the council meeting, its available online to read, the council simply followed the process that approved that recommendation.
so how do you suggest councils should work going forward if they are meant to just overrule recommendations from their own specialist departments because we disagree with them ?
A decision can have followed the proper process, but it can still be perverse.
West Sussex Council Highways Department may well have recommended the removal of the cycle lane, but if that recommendation went against every policy of the council and the scrutiny committee wanted the decision reviewed, then it was a perverse decision.
Councils aren't supposed to over-rule recommendations from their own specialist departments just because we disagree with them, they should over-rule them because they go against every policy the council has. Then they should sack without compensation the cretins in that department for not knowing their own policies.