CITY of York Council has lost a crucial appeal over its fining of motorists who were caught on camera driving through Coppergate when barred.

The national Traffic Penalty Tribunal - which ruled last spring that the council had no power to issue penalty charge notices for using Coppergate and also Lendal Bridge during an experimental traffic ban - today announced it had dismissed the authority's challenge to that decision.

The tribunal said last summer that if the appeal was dismissed, the council would have to accept the decision unless it decided to apply to the High Court for judicial review.

The council has set aside £387,000 paid in fines by motorists for using Coppergate in case it has to issue refunds to them, although it still has the right of appeal.

>>> READ THE RULING IN FULL HERE

The authority has been waiting more than a year for the decision and the tribunal said earlier this week that it would defer making it public until after next month's council elections, but then made a U-turn yesterday and decided to announce it today.

Caroline Sheppard, pictured below, the chief adjudicator for the tribunal, said the Coppergate traffic order was valid, but "drafted carelessly and obtusely".

York Press:

She said Coppergate was a bus lane and the council was entitled to enforce it, but said the signs at the entrance to Coppergate did not properly convey the restrictions, because it failed to state the 7am-7pm timings, and did not mention the exemption for private hire vehicles.

She said: "The errors in the signs mean that contraventions of the Coppergate Traffic Regulation Order are unenforceable (unless they have been changed)".

She said the original adjudicator, Stephen Knapp, was wrong to declare that Coppergate could not be called a bus lane, but said the signs made the council's attempted enforcement invalid.

She said that given the importance City of York Council attached to Coppergate and Lendal Bridge as bus routes, "it is a wonder that they did not take care to produce traffic regulation orders that reflected the drafting of the statutory powers they were so keen to adopt."

She criticised the wording and questioned how involved the council's legal team had been in drafting the orders.

She wrote: "It is clear that, whoever drafted this traffic regulation order, either, like a child at a "pick n mix" counter, simply selected a range of terms for the [order] or did not amend the previous order that applied to Coppergare with any consideration for the new scheme to be enforced by CCTC cameras."

She said the information on the sign at the junction of Coppergate and Piccadilly was in the wrong order and did not sufficiently clarify which restrictions applied to loading and which to all traffic.

She said there had been an email exchange between the council and the Department for Transport but said no formal authorisation for the signage was sought from the Secretary of State.

She said the failure to mention private hire vehicles, as well as taxis, on the signs was another error, and said City of York Council had failed to reply to her request for a clarificaiton on the distinction.

The council decided last year not to challenge the tribunal's ruling on Lendal Bridge, and scrapped its ban on cars crossing the bridge and refunded thousands of motorists' penalty charge notices for breaching the ban.

Sarah Tanburn, interim Director of City and Environmental Services, said earlier this week that if the tribunal determined that camera enforcement was not allowed in Coppergate, this would be a landmark decision with significant repercussions on bus lane enforcement nationally, impacting on many local authorities.

Neil Ferris, Assistant Director of Transport, Highways and Waste at City of York Council, said this afternoon: “We welcome the decision that the council is entitled to enforce the Coppergate Bus Lane, as these permanent restrictions have been in place on Coppergate for over 50-years and the initial tribunal’s decision was flawed in that respect.

"The council will however be digesting the TPT’s full review and will be taking legal advice in respect of the decision referencing to signage.

“Congestion in York isn’t going to go away and poor air quality remains an issue.

"The rationale behind introducing camera enforcement was to implement a solution to improve York’s congestion, which costs the York economy around £37 million per year, and cut the number of unnecessary premature deaths in York due to poor air quality, which is estimated to be 82 deaths per year.

“The authority maintains that it fundamentally needs to tackle this issue in York and an independently-chaired cross-party approach to investigate more ways it can tackle traffic congestion, is due to be convened later this year.”

Nigel Rhodes, the Acomb motorist whose appeal against a fine for driving through Coppergate led to the tribunal's investigation, said: "I am just pleased for the people of York. They were just going about York on their business and got caught out. The signs just weren't good enough."