ARE UK's ROADS SAFE IN THE HANDS OF LOCAL AUTHORITIES ADVISED BY SUSTRANS, THE CYCLING LOBBY BASED IN BRISTOL?

62% increase in injuries to cyclists in Bristol since 1994  despite ￡2.3m spend on 20 mph signs and Sustrans' vision is "Zero" accidents! Their vision is Zero! And that is besides inhaling carcinogenic diesel fumes on narrow cycle lanes on  busy roads.

AND was Bindmans' Advice Sound or Politically Peverse?

The Local Government Ombudsman, Dr. Jane Martin didn't want to know. Did she obey her own remit?  Did the Assistant Ombudsmen? It is a serious matter if they didn't. Bindmans, London solicitors, won't draft the question for me. So the Challenge must now be here with  the aid of social media, and not with lawyers in a Court of Law - YOU ARE THE JUDGES - Go where angels fear to tread.

Google SUSTRANS, the cycling lobby and national cycling charity - " We have a vision:
By 2020 we want 4 out of 5 local journeys to be made by bike, foot or public transport." NOT BY CAR!!!
- Remember their 3 Cs ... Casualties, Congestion & the biggest C of all  Cancer when you think of their plans to construct narrow cycle lanes  on busy main roads in towns & cities with buses, lorries and cars spewing out toxic, carcinogenic diesel fumes and cyclists at a constant of risk of serious or fatal injury.

and the great waste of public money creating them at a time of austerity cuts. Wouldn't it be better spent on flood relief and flood defenses?

Bindmans wrote to me: As solicitors, we are prevented by the SRA Code of Conduct 2011 from drafting any documents, relating to any proceedings, containing a contention that we do not consider to be properly arguable. We are therefore unable to draft a pre-action protocol on your behalf since, for the reasons given above, we do not consider there to be any properly arguable grounds for judicial review.

I am  going to dispute that even though it means suggesting that Bindmans, a firm of solicitors in London with an impeccable reputation for defending Human Rights is here, for whatever reason, looking the other way. If there are no “properly arguable grounds for judicial review”  – not necessarily grounds that would win the day in Court, but at least arguable there –there must be something badly wrong with Bindmans’ Advice or with UK justice itself

My long standing friend from University days, Sir Geoffrey Bindman QC, now retired, whose own contribution gave much to their undoubtedly deserved name and reputation at the time, cannot believe that Bindmans are wrong.

I hope my challenge here will not spoil the friendship, but challenge them I must.

I have published the main part of the Dossier in 7 parts on this website. In addition, it is supported by over 100 pages of documentary evidence that I can send to anyone interested to see it.

The Dossier centres on the decision of Ms Kim Burns, an Assistant Local Government Ombudsman, to reject my complaint alleging gross maladministration of their plans for cycle lanes on busy main roads by the Newcastle City Council. Her final decision was, word for word, the same as her draft decision despite my criticism of the draft. It was subsequently endorsed by three other Assistant Ombudsmen but Dr. Jane Martin, as the Local Government Ombudsman,declined my repeated requests to her staff that she sign off the decision. And Ms Burns and her colleagues refused to visit Newcastle to resolve the differences of fact between those presented to her by the Local Authority and others, totally conflicting ones, presented to her by other complainants as well as myself.

That was to be the substance of my seeking judicial review of the Local Government Ombudsman, explicitly not seeking here to challenge the City Council itself.

My complaint against Ms Burns’ decision

You will see that I pointed to no fewer than nine matters of considerable importance that Ms Kim Burns totally ignored.Click for the details Part 6 of my Dossier – Errors & Omissions of Ms Kim Burns.

Bindmans argue that Judges would decide that Ms Kim Burns would have an “unfettered discretion” to ignore these matters. If that is right, isn't there something  very badly wrong? You are now the judge.

The malign role of Sustrans, the national cycling charity based in Bristol

Here Bindmans create their own Aunt Sally to knock down. “One of the main points you raise is that the role of SUSTRANS was somehow concealed and that for this reason the Ombudsman should have upheld your complaint. Whatever the nature of SUSTRANS’s role, the decision-maker was the Council and it is, in our view, the underlying policy decision of the Council with which you take issue in this regard.“

That was NOT my criticism. My criticism was that the Newcastle City Council had bought in Sustrans policy for one in five motorists to abandon their cars for a cycle for journeys under 5 miles and made that its “overarching aim” and they had concealed it, not Sustrans. Furthermore, the act of suppressing it had been reinforced with a lie that figures were not the motivating factor, the lie that Ms Kim Burns put her name to.

In April 2013 the Newcastle City Council published Newcastle Fit for Cycling – Cycle City Ambition bid, “By year 10 we would anticipate approximately 12% cycle mode share for trips under 5 miles.” In an undated publication Delivering Cycling Improvements in Newcastle – a ten-year strategy 2011-22, Newcastle City Council asserted “The overarching aim is to develop a cycling culture where 20% of all trips under five miles are undertaken by cycle by 2021.”

Despite that she said this “As I have seen no evidence to suggest Cabinet or the Overview and Scrutiny Committee received inaccurate information about cycling figures when making its decision to approve the scheme and there is no evidence cycling figures were the motivation for the traffic scheme I have no grounds to criticise the Council.“

I was myself provoked to get involved in the first place when the Project Manager with a startling economy of the truth wrote: “Currently there are less than 1000 cyclists a day using the High street but we want to see that grow so that 20% of all trips in Newcastle use this mode. Given that 30,000 vehicles use the Great North Road per day for return trips then it is not unreasonable to see that figure grow to 3 or 4 thousand return trips by bicycle.” A professional survey counted about 70 cyclists a day! Not even a hundred. I gave Ms Burns a copy of that email as well as a copy of all the documentation I have referred to.

Bindmans saw nothing irrational or in any way culpable in any of this.

Was the Local Government Ombudsman biased?

This is where I take the greatest issue with Bindmans.

This is what they put in their Advice:

“The most frequently raised category of bias is apparent bias, the test for which is whether the fair-minded and informed observer, having considered the facts, would conclude that there was a real possibility that the decision-maker was biased.10 In our view, that test is not met here. In particular, the mere fact that, at various stages throughout your lengthy correspondence with the LGO, staff within the LGO office upheld prior decisions of their colleagues would not, in our opinion, lead a ‘fair-minded and informed’ observer (or, therefore, a Judge) to conclude that there was a real possibility that those individuals were biased. To establish bias some factor outside the decision-making process itself is required to give rise to a real possibility of bias. If this were not the case, then every decision of a decision-making body would demonstrate bias against the person to whom the decision.”

What a nonsense this paragraph is when you look at it. You will see the faults that I have identified in the dossier. To give a complete whitewash to Newcastle local authority without a single hint of criticism as Ms Burns does first in draft and then unaltered, despite my challenging it, in her final decision must at least be some evidence of bias in favour of the local authority.

There may also have been a wish on the part of the LGO to keep from public view the role of Sustrans, the national cycling charity, in all this; an embarrassment to many people when you see how their policy of joined up narrow cycle lanes on busy main roads exposes cyclists to the risk of cancer from inhaling toxic carcinogenic fumes and the constant risk of serious or fatal injury not to mention the vast amount of money given to them directly and indirectly to promote this. If you have to look for a reason “outside the decision-making process” that certainly fits it; but I am not at all sure that you should even have to.

Take a look right inside the decision making process in the office of the Local Government Ombudsman. This is what Bindmans said about that

“So far as bias is concerned, despite what you say in the response we remain of the view that there is nothing on the evidence that would lead us to conclude that the Administrative Court would accept an allegation of bias. You say that ‘the bias here is to try to protect the jobs of colleagues and the integrity of the system.’ Yet we can see nothing on the evidence that suggests an improper motivation behind the Ombudsman’s conclusions.”

Just how na?ve can you be? The more one assistant ombudsman endorsed the stance of another and ultimately three others did, the more difficult it becomes for Dr. Jane Martin to own her responsibility and say that they were all being too loyal to each other. That is why there are grounds for alleging bias, namely hers, when she did not want to know although I repeated challenged her through her staff to know.

There might be an even simpler explanation. London is currently having to come to terms with its own infatuation with the cycle with mayor Boris Johnson a prime mover (previously with Nick Clegg as deputy Prime Minister). It is an infatuation – saving the planet, combating obesity &c.&c.&c. – it is infectious and both the LGO  and Bindmans, a London firm of solicitors, might have caught the mood of the times. Everything is currently loaded in favour of cycling – biased in other words. Slow London traffic down – splendid in Sustrans’ own remit. Read it! In London cycle lanes are even being constructed that prevent ambulances and police cars attending to an emergency in the remaining single carriageway filled with log jammed traffic. Serious and fatal injuries are increasing all the time. It is a bias in favour of the cyclist against all other road users that isn’t even in the health and safety interests of cyclists themselves. Fair play for all road users? Forget it. Only the other guy can be held to blame when there is an accident. Do not, for example, insist that cyclists carry a policy of insurance like other road users, or that they should always have lights and bells. Call this the Lemmings Syndrome.

Consultation or A Con + Salutation

If you want some light relief here, click Alice in Blunderland, the Mad Hatters Committee Meeting that I wrote with feeling in response to pseudo consultation when I was helping parents of children with special educational needs in their successful campaign to keep their school open. I am not a stranger to this issue.

I will here give you one final illustration of the way in which Bindmans tried to justify the unjustifiable, in this instance twice over, first the highly questionable consultation procedure of Newcastle Local Authority, then saying that Ms Burns had good reason to ignore it.

I made a very serious allegation against Newcastle City Council. They were proposing to change a junction where four roads meet into a single junction removing half of a public car park in the process, leaving it with only 40 spaces when now there are over 100. This horror story actually starts today as I write this with the closure of the carpark with no substitute car parking on offer whatsoever although specifically promised. Sustrans in Bristol who designed this should be putting their flags out tonight! <writing on 13.1.2016 - I was caught in a half mile tail back yesterday and it will go on for months!>

Apart from a huge spend that will cause rush hour tailbacks over many months that will seriously inconvenience bus passengers, lorries and cars traversing the junction, it will devastate community activities and local restaurants in the evenings because of the absence of alternative car parking in the neighbourhood. I explained why this would be the case to Ms Burns, one very good rational argument for her coming to Newcastle to see the situation for herself.

The justification in the consultative process was “better cycling safety” and it was separately argued that they were removing an accident blackspot, although there had been no attempt to deal with this with a camera if that had been a source of worry. Look for the true reason – joined up cycle lanes to meet the plans drawn up by Sustrans in Bristol without any local knowledge and bought in by the Newcastle Local Authority largely with the taxpayers’ money earmarked for the purpose along with their “overarching policy”. You will not find reference to this for this work or for the cycle lanes and red lines to follow anywhere in the consultation documentation .

Do not tell me that this was the right way to consult with or without rulings of the Supreme Court.

But this is what Bindmans said:

Certain of the arguments you raise in the Share Draft (and to which you have referred in our conversations and email correspondence) would properly be classified as procedural fairness arguments. These include your suggestion that the Council’s original consultation may have been unlawful under the principles laid down by the Supreme Court in R (Moseley) v Haringey London Borough Council [2014] UKSC 56, [2014] 1 WLR 3947. The obvious Response to that complaint (and one which we have not doubt the LGO would advance) is that the proper forum for any such complaint is a claim for judicial review against the Council’s original policy decision, the time limit for which has long expired.

17. A challenge to the LGO on this point would likely need to be framed in terms of irrationality (ie that it was irrational for the LGO to conclude that the original consultation did not constitute maladministration). We consider such an argument to have no merit, both because of the difficulties posed by an irrationality challenge in this case (as to which, see above) and because the principles in Moseley have, since that case, been restrictively interpreted by the courts (see, for example, R (Morris) v Rhondda Cynon Taf CBC [2015] EWHC 1403 (Admin) (another case in which Jamie Potter of Bindmans acted for the claimant). In any event, we agree with the LGO that it is open to the Council to reach a different view to those surveyed,20 and we consider that to do so does not necessarily render a policy decision unlawful. WOW, “not necessarily” or at all?

Let me put this very simply. There is a fire. No-one sees the flames. Along comes Ms Burns who says that because no-one else has seen the fire, she doesn’t have to look at the flames and call the fire brigade even when I point them out to her.

When Bindmans sent me their draft report I said that their argument here was a non sequitur. They paid not the slightest attention to this or anything else I said when they finalised their report leaving it word for word the same as the draft.

A house is built of many bricks. There are so many ways the Newcastle Local Authority was deficient. This was just one of many, and Bindmans were only too happy to try to justify Ms Burns looking the other way, more precisely not looking any way at all and certainly not taking the train to Newcastle. Cost you know!

The long and the short of it is that Bindmans did not want to be a party to my saying that the Local Government Ombudsman here is a “lousy, stinking hypocritical charade”, words that I have had to use more than once to describe aspects of our flawed democratic process. They did not want to endorse what I say in Part3 of my dossier – the Local Government Ombudsman remit that under Dr. Martin what the LGO says about itself is a misrepresentation of reality.

Bindmans are not alone in not wanting to rock the boat, to damage public trust in a system of which they themselves are a part, that is no system if it is not trusted.

I must point out that it is no system if it does not deserve to be trusted. It is no system when checks and balances are disabled and the traffic lights for local authorities to do what they want are always on green.

It should be no comfort to Bindmans that they are not alone here. Many years ago when as chair of governors of a special school in Sunderland I was seeking the advice of Elizabeth Appleby QC on possible maladministration by the local authority a firm of solicitors, best unnamed, decided to cease all work on educational matters, deserted their client school, and left me to meet up with Elizabeth Appleby QC without a solicitor of my own choosing. That is another story best left in my archives. It provoked me to write my play Death of a Nightingale the only safe way for me to allude to the underlying causes of local maladministration, all else and much else, totally failing.

More recently before I prevailed on my friend of long standing Sir Geoffrey Bindman to introduced me to his old firm, I found other solicitors totally unwilling to be involved, one did not even quote for the job, another said that they did not have the resources.

None of this is good news, then much of what I write about is not good news. There is good news around when I am not writing! I leave that for other aspects of my life such as my involvement in a very good care home where the pursuit of excellence comes naturally to all the staff – to my seeing dedicated teachers and carers working in special schools that are still open despite the civic vandalism of those who closed over 100 of them in the UK skewered to political dogma that in the name of Equality “one size fits all” with the concept of fair play not in their soul at all – to my enjoying those who bring music to the NE at the Sage Gateshead – to meeting all those who do good work quietly, and there are a lot of them.

They have all been betrayed by a handful of people who have hijacked the system, projecting for others what they selfishly want for themselves quite regardless of the needs of others, working things out in the libraries of their minds and not in the real world, allowed to get away with it by those who should know better. Did they anticipate, for example, that the bullying of children with special needs would be a chronic problem in mainstream schools and pills and more pills a treatment of choice for difficult youngsters. I have seen this with special educational needs, and I see it now with cyclists  when it comes their inhaling  toxic carcinogenic diesel fumes on narrow cycle lanes along busy mainstream roads..

And Bindmans' Advice Good or Bad? – The Roman poet Horace sums it up Parturiunt Montes Nascetur Ridiculus Mus – The mountains are in labour, and there is born a ridiculous little mouse.

 FOR THE DOSSIER AND MORE BACKGROUND DETAILS - www.deathofanightingale.com/blog