Possible Legal Action - Outlined Case and Concerns

As a result of our research and external advice from a Traffic Planning Road Safety Consultant we are formulating a case to be presented in the event of legal action. This will take place in June if Derby City Council fails to reverse the scheme or decides to make unacceptable changes to the lane configurations or negatively impacts the environment. See link across on the right for details of how DCC have ignored planning and safety guidelines.

Summary

It is clear that the experimental nature of the scheme was first outlined in February. Taking this in to consideration together with other data we believe that the Traffic Orders contain technical and administrative faults. It is our belief that in their current state they have no legal basis.

We plan to contact the Audit Commission and outline our concern that public funds have been spent on a project where in our opinion the economic negatives outweigh the positives (the value of car delays, house price reduction, costs incurred by residents through driveway redevelopments and general capital costs outweigh any gains for buses)

We plan to contend that EC law has been broken by the lack of an Environmental Impact Assessment. In our opinion the length and effects (such as on air quality, visual amenity and severance) on Duffield road is such that an EIA should have been prepared and presented at Consultation stage. If one is not prepared this is normally as a result of an internal "determination" (which is normally then advertised). It is clear that neither were shown suggesting that due process had not been gone through.

We strongly suggest that road safety has be affected, and although a road safety audit is not a legal duty, the lack of one in the event of an injury accident could be a material fact in proving negligence. If legal action takes place we plan to use TMS to undertake an audit in the absence of a council audit to HD19/03.

Leaving aside the formal economics, any right turning vehicle on the northbound side or cyclist traveling outbound is causing tailbacks which could cause significant disruption to drivers and also affect access to people's own properties. We reserved the right to claim compensation under the 1973 Land Compensation Act.

We also plan to demonstrate that the needs of non-motorised users had not been considered e.g. no report to HD42 standard.

We are now developing a consortium of residents who are planning to claim liability on their building/home insurance for the depreciation on the value of their properties due to this scheme. If you would like to join us in this action we would be interested in talking to you. We are keen to pool our resources which will enable us to have an estimated £1million worth of legal costs available to us. We have been in to contact with other people who have won legal cases against local authorities using this method.