Fightback against hated LTN that made Labour-run council £1million in fines as it is ordered by High Court to scrap 'unlawful' low-traffic neighbourhood in first case of its kind
An 'unlawful' low-traffic neighbourhood in West Dulwich, south London will become the first in the UK to be axed after a judge rejected an appeal from Lambeth council.
The council will now have to pay out £35,000 in legal fees to the West Dulwich Action Group (WDAG), which brought the case, but campaigners are calling for this to be increased to include the £1,080,580 taken in penalties.
Nonetheless, the body welcomed the decision to close the LTN which they argued had increased pollution and traffic on bordering roads.
A spokesman for WDAG said: 'This ruling is definitive – the LTN was unlawful. The council has lost, has been denied permission to appeal, and must now face the consequences of what that means.
'At the top of that list is the £1 million in fines it issued while the unlawful scheme was in place.
'We now call on Lambeth Council to clarify whether it will refund those fines. This is not just about legality – it's about fairness and public trust. If the law was broken, the money should be paid back.'
The group has also pleaded with the council to avoid taking the case any further via another appeal, adding that it would waste yet more public funds.
The 'unlawful' low-traffic neighbourhood, pictured, in West Dulwich, south London will become the first in the UK to be axed
They said: 'Doing so would further waste taxpayers' money and signal that its priority is protecting revenue, not engaging with the community it serves.
'Let's be clear: this case should never have gone to court. It could have been resolved through proper, respectful dialogue. Instead, chose to defend litigation over listening – and the public has paid for it.
'It's a wake-up call to councils everywhere: to not impose blanket schemes ignoring genuine concerns and issues, and to work with your communities.
'We again invite Lambeth to return to the table and help co-create fairer, smarter approaches to car use, pollution, road safety, and sustainable travel – with data, community support, and clear success measures at the heart of every decision.'
Mr Justice Smith warned council bosses not to 'revoke' the LTN, which was introduced last year, instead of it being 'quashed' by a court ruling.
He wrote: 'Revoking the orders after I have made a finding of unlawfulness leaves the same impression as would an attempt to resign immediately after one has been fired.'
The judge also ordered the council to implement the ruling immediately, calling on them not to defer removing the LTN, as it had 'known of the need to instruct these works to take place since May 9' when it initially lost the High Court case.
He rejected the local authority's bid to avoid paying WDAG's legal costs on the grounds that they had won only one of three legal challenges, branding the attempt 'misconceived' due to the fact that residents had been 'wholly successful'.
Mr Justice Smith added: 'Here the claimant came to court seeking a quashing of the [traffic] orders. It has gone away having achieved that objective. It has therefore been completely successful.
'The fact that the claimant has succeeded in only one of its three grounds of claim does not alter the fact that it has been wholly successful in its aims.'
In his May ruling, he found Lambeth council guilty of a 'serious falling' following its deicision to ignore an 'impressive' report suggesting street closures could cause a spike in pollution and congestion in the surrounding area.
Mr Justice Smith also described a council document ignoring 'hostility' expressed towards the LTN in a public consultation as a 'masterclass in selective partial reporting'.
It emerged in February that staff working for the local authority had been handed a 'wellbeing day' off having been 'left in tears' in the wake of residents making their 'anger' known at a 2023 meeting at West Norwood Library.
The barrister for Lambeth Council, Heather Sargeant, wrote that the meeting brought councillors to tears and forced council staff to take a lunch break to 'get away' from the hostility from angry residents.
She wrote: 'The experience of officers attending the event for the council (on a Saturday) was so negative that the then head of transport strategy and programmes offered them a day of wellbeing leave.'
The opponents to the LTN criticised the council for a lack of public consultation and argued this made the proposal unlawful.
Lambeth council spokesman said: 'We implemented the West Dulwich street improvements to reduce road danger and create a safer and healthier neighbourhood.
'We remain committed to delivering our programme to reduce road danger for those most at-risk and make our streets calmer, more community-friendly places.
'The High Court has ordered the removal of West Dulwich street improvements. No further fines will be issued, and we are removing the scheme as soon as it can be done safely.'
The spokesman did not acknowledge WDAG's demands for more than £1m in fines to be reimbursed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Corbyn strikes again as Labour lose their first councillor to the former leader's ultra-left party founded with Zarah Sultana
Labour have lost their first councillor to the ultra-left party former leader Jeremy Corbyn recently founded with dissident MP Zarah Sultana. Grace Lewis, 22, defected from Sir Keir Starmer 's party on Friday to join the new political grouping - which at present is only a 600,000-person-strong mailing list. Ms Lewis, a vocal pro-Palestinian voice on Coventry City Council, represents the ward of Westwood in the southwest of the city. In a post on social media she laid into Labour's record in government, citing Sir Keir's raid on winter fuel payments, cuts to disability allowance and the party's retention of the two child benefit cap. In the statement she said: 'Today, after 5 and a half years, I resigned my Labour Party membership. I will now serve the residents of Westwood on Coventry City Council as an Independent. 'The Labour Party promised 'change', yet since entering government, Labour has cut support for disabled people, kept the Tories cruel Two Child Benefit cap and slashed Winter Fuel Payments - driving record numbers into poverty. 'Rather than address the real crises facing people in our city, they have chosen the side of the rich and powerful. 'They have joined Reform in targeting minorities, including migrants and trans peple, all whilst being atcive participants in the genocide in Gaza, ramping up spending on war, and arming Israel - criminalising peaceful protestors in the process.' Coventry councillor Grace Lewis, 22, (pictured) is the first serving Labour politician to defect to Your Party, the new political grouping formed by former leader Jeremy Corbyn and ex-MP Zarah Sultana Ms Lewis was elected in the City Council Elections on May 2, 2024, two months before Sir Keir Starmer's 'loveless landslide' at that year's General Election. She won her seat with 1936 voters on 47 per cent of the ballot, with the Conservative candidate Asha Masih finishing second on 1415 voters on 35 per cent of votes. Ms Lewis began her two-year term on May 7 and also sits on the City Council's Planning Committee, Health and Social Care Scrutiny Board and Communities and Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Board. In her short time as an elected councillor she has courted controversy on several occasions - most noteable in her vocal support for the Palestinian cause. Last December she lambasted Israel in a council meeting for carrying out a 'genocidal assault on Gaza', The Telegraph reported. In the same meeting she called for the West Midlands Pension Fund to divest from any investments with companies involved in arms sales to Israel. Ms Lewis also carried over her advocacy into her personal life, wearing a badge of the Palestinian flag to her graduation day last year at the University of Warwick. In another graduation picture she can be seen holding a hand-painted banner with two other students that reads 'Free Palestine'. In the Instagram caption accompanying the photo she wrote: 'My degree may be over, but Warwick's complicity is not #freepalestine.' Mr Corbyn and Ms Sultana's movement has the website with a welcome message saying 'this is your party'. Already 600,000 people have signed up to the party's mailing list, although the name is only a placeholder, with Mr Corybn suggesting the members will be handed the final say. Government ministers who used to sit alongside Mr Corbyn in the House of Commons mocked the 'chaotic' launch of the veteran MP's new party. Yet Mr Corbyn shrugged off the criticism and said there had been an 'enormous' response to the launch. Speaking during a visit to a bin strike picket line in Birmingham on Jult 25, he pointed out that hundreds of thousands had already flocked to the new outfit. The party is expected to hold its inagural conference in November and Mr Corbyn has outlined a focus on peace, social justice and an end to austerity economics. In her statement outlining her reasons for quitting Labour, Ms Lewis attacked Labour's spending plans which she said locally included cuts to libaries and charities. But Ms Sultana immediately sowed confusion by insisting a name had not yet been chosen. She frantically posted on social media: 'It's not called Your Party.' She wrote: 'They have continued austerity and failed to properly address the deepening crisis of Local Government finance, with many authorities still at risk of bankruptcy. 'Here in Coventry, the Labou Council cuts library services, cultural funding and support for local charities. 'And when workers stand up to fight for decent living standards Coventry City Council responds by strike-breaking, sending Tom White Waste trucks to Birmingham, insulting the very trade unions which the party was founded to defend. 'This is not the change peple voted for, not the changed I joined the Labour Party for when I was 16, and certainly not the change which people deserve. 'Therefore, I welcome the launch of a new left party, one rootred in working-class communities and committed to real change.' Cllr Lewis added: 'When Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn announced its inception, I felt a sense of genuine political hope for the first time in a long time.' In a post on X commenting on the defection, Zarah Sultana said: 'Grace is a formidable force in local government and I'm proud to welcome her to the new political party we're building! 'Across the country, millions feel politically homeless. Labour is dead. To councillors everywhere: are you really delivering the change Keir Starmer promised?' Polls have suggested the new party headed by Mr Corbyn and Ms Sultana could take between 10 and 18 per cent of the vote at the next General Election, which would prove disastrous for Labour nationally. The so-called 'Hastings Independents Group' - which consists of MPs who left Labour in December 2023 - have already affiliated with Your Party. Councillors Paul Barnett, Andy Batsford, John Cannan, Nigel Sinden, Mike Turner, and Simon Willis are all onboard with the new grouping, which seems set to shake up the left of British politics. In an email to supporters, Your Party confirmed their first conference will be held before the end of 2025. They wrote: 'This conference will be the moment where, together, we will decide the direction, structure and platform of this party. 'To make it as accessible and democratic as possible, the conference will be hybrid – both in-person and online – so that everyone can take part in the decisions that will shape its future. Make no mistake: whatever the name, it is always going to be your party.' However, those inside the Labour cabinet have been scathing about Your Party. Technology Secretary Peter Kyle told Times Radio: 'I was an MP in the Labour Party when Jeremy Corbyn was leader. 'And the chaos and instability that he brought to our party I'm now viewing him wreak in his new party. 'I'm just very glad that I'm looking on it from the outside this time, rather than having to experience it from the inside.' Mr Kyle, who campaigned for Mr Corbyn to become prime minister at the 2017 and 2019 general elections, said the veteran left-winger was 'not a serious politician'. He added: 'The thing that worries me the most about what he says is that he doesn't want to spend money defending our country. 'He is against the money that Labour is investing into the defence of our country. 'At the moment, these are the things that should fundamentally worry us about the words of Jeremy Corbyn. 'He's not a serious politician. He doesn't think about governing, he thinks about posturing.'
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Notting Hill carnival machete attacker jailed for 18 years for attempted murder after he launched himself at teenager and slashed open his stomach
A teenager will spend 18 years behind bars after he attacked a stranger with a 10-inch 'zombie knife' at Notting Hill Carnival. Rumarni Tuitt, 19, from Walthamstow, north-east London, stabbed 18-year-old Kamani Spooner with the deadly weapon on the evening of August 24 last year. He was found guilty of attempted murder back on May 8 following a two-week trial at the Old Bailey. Sentencing him on Friday, Judge Judy Khan KC said it was a 'brutal and wholly unjustifiable attack and that there was no justification for carrying a knife of that nature on to crowded streets. 'This was a particularly serious offence committed in the heart of Europe's biggest street festival,' she added. In a witness statement for the police, Mr Spooner said he spent much of the day drinking with his friends and enjoying the carnival before the horrific assault unfolded. 'Towards the end of the carnival, he [Mr Spooner] could hear shouting coming from somewhere and he realised he was somehow in the middle of it,' prosecutor Mark Paltenghi told jurors. 'He then saw people fighting around him - three of them were quite close, they were throwing punches. 'He then recalls being hit in the back and upon looking at his arm, saw it had been cut, then looked down and saw that his intestines were hanging out. He put his hand over them and just ran. Mr Tuitt also stabbed Mr Spooner four more times to the side and the back and caused a laceration to his right forearm. Officers arrested Mr Tuitt immediately after the attack and were able to provide vital medical treatment to his victim until paramedics could reach them. Despite having his stomach sliced open, Mr Spooner miraculously survived his injuries thanks to life saving surgery. The zombie-style knife used, described by police as 'at least 10 inches in length', was recovered from the scene. 'Zombie-style' is the street name given to weapons which are over eight inches in length and often have a serrated edge, spikes or more than two sharp points. During his trial in May, the court heard that Mr Tuitt and Mr Spooner did not know each other. Mr Tuitt said that he was acting in self defence but the jury rejected his claim. Acting Detective Inspector Sophie McLoughlin, who led the investigation, said: 'This was a savage and senseless attack. The victim was very lucky to survive his injuries. 'Hundreds of thousands of people, including the victim in this case, go to Carnival to have a good time and enjoy the music and entertainment. 'Those who would choose to turn up armed with a 10 inch zombie knife clearly have no such intentions. 'It is thanks to the vigilance of officers on duty that day and the hard work of my team in the months since that we were able to build the case that saw Tuitt convicted at court. 'It is also thanks to officers' immediate medical intervention at the scene, as well as the specialist further care by paramedics, that we're talking about a conviction for attempted murder and not worse. 'I hope the victim can now move forward and begin to put this experience behind him.'
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Keir Starmer must fight for UK drug firms
The life sciences industry is among the brightest jewels in the British economy, generating £100billion a year and employing more than 300,000 people. At its heart is the development and manufacture of pharmaceuticals, notably by AstraZeneca, which spends vast sums on research and is worth £167billion. So, if this hugely successful company were to relocate to the US, it would be a disaster both for the London Stock Exchange and the wider economy. Worryingly, this is not out of the question. AstraZeneca already sells 40 per cent of its drugs to America and, following President Donald Trump 's tariff threat, is ramping up research and production there. While there are no immediate plans to desert the UK, chief executive Pascal Soriot is said to be 'flirting' with the idea. Mr Trump's latest demand that foreign drug companies cut prices to US customers or face penalties may be an added incentive. The Left has always been highly critical of 'Big Pharma', accusing it of profiteering on the backs of NHS patients. Under Jeremy Corbyn, Labour planned to create a state-owned drug manufacturer with the power to override the patents which enable firms to make profits from their research. Only last year, Sir Keir Starmer refused to help fund a new vaccine plant in Liverpool – while pouring public money into our ailing steel industry. This Government must understand that failing to nurture AstraZeneca, GSK and others would be a catastrophic mistake. And Sir Keir should realise that while they say they want to remain in the UK, they may yet change their mind. Car lenders off hook Banks and credit providers will have heaved a huge sigh of relief yesterday after the Supreme Court ruled they will not have to pay compensation to millions of motorists who bought cars on finance without being told the dealers were receiving commission on the loan. The Treasury was also delighted with the result. Had it gone the other way, damages could have been comparable to the PPI scandal, which destabilised the financial industry for more than a decade. The court decided that dealers did not have a duty to act solely for buyers and that commissions were not a form of bribery in the legal sense, as had been alleged. However, it was not a total exoneration. Court President Lord Reed also ruled that excessive commission payments were unfair and ordered one buyer who had been charged 25 per cent of the value of the car to be repaid with interest. This opens the way to further claims. Many brokers and dealers were paid behind-the-scenes commission by lenders to sign buyers up to car finance deals, a practice deemed 'unlawful' by the Court of Appeal in October last year - a decision that was successfully appealed by lenders at the Supreme Court The dealers and lenders have escaped their worst fears, but they do not come out well. They have certainly been guilty of sharp practices even if not illegal ones. The Competition and Markets Authority must now force them to clean up their act. OAPs feel the cold In September, Rachel Reeves promised she would 'put more money in pensioners' pockets'. What she didn't say is that she would take even more out. Research shows pensioner households are an average of £800 worse off after a year of Labour thanks to higher bills – mainly owing to the Chancellor's £40billion Budget tax raid. With more taxes coming down the track to fill Labour's ever-widening financial black hole, the cost of living is set to soar further. For all Ms Reeves' promises, the elderly are in for a bitter winter.
