The decision has been reached NOT to attend court today. We were left with little choice as Ealing Council sought to side step the proceedings by replacing the old Experimental Traffic Orders (ETOs) with new ETOs.
On Wednesday Ealing wrote to our judge advising that the hearing should not go ahead because they had made new ETOs that day, meaning the old ETOs that we challenged would cease to be in operation as of 17th February. This would mean us battling in court over ETOs due to expire in 5 days after the preliminary hearing.
This was truly a blatant attempt to sidestep the court case and being held to account for the clear deficiencies in the original ETOs.
They claimed that new ETOs were needed because the were 'substantial changes' to the original ETOs, that is the adding of ANPR cameras and allowing Blue Badge holders access to their own LTNs.
These changes clearly did not need new ETOs, as they had already swapped out bollards for cameras in some of the LTNs with no amendments to the existing ETOs.
We took legal advice and it was clear that going to court today faced with this new situation was pointless.
Ealing continued their disgraceful shirking of responsibilities right up until yesterday by telling the court that we needed to request a hearing for our costs and they would respond at a later date. In the end having pushed Ealing we demanded that our legal costs were met and they agreed to cover a substantial amount in the region of our legal costs incurred to date.
To be clear, whilst not the day in court we wanted we see this as an acknowledgement they got the ETOs wrong. One only had to look at the new ETOs to see all the changes they have made (whilst not enough) stem from issues we have raised.
The decision to vacate the hearing today was not taken lightly. We are as disappointed as you are, to be denied the chance to have the evidence heard and Ealing held to account. However, just so we are clear, this is NOT the end of the road for the legal process.
We appreciate that whilst securing our legal costs is a positive step, this does not get us to where we want to be with the removal of all LTNs. Hence we are reviewing the new ETOs with a view to what further action should be taken. We are already mobilised with a great legal team in place and believe that there are still significant issues with the schemes. They are still unsafe, discriiminary and do not achieve their objectives.
Finally I would like to thank each of you for all your efforts to date in helping us get so far ; financial donations, letters of objections, commonplace objections, research, monitoring and advise - the list goes on. We have been overwhelmed by the messages of luck and we know how much we were all anticipating opportunity to have Ealing held to account. So much work has gone into what we have achieved so far and we are not finished yet!
OneEaling
P. S As you will appreciate this news has broken very recently yesterday and we have been working long hours in negotiating fees etc. We wanted to let everyone know where we had gotten to. However we do plan to hold another online meeting soon where you can put your questions to us live. Details to follow soon.
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