• an “In My View” article by NIGEL WARD, up-dating readers on the dispute over the Huttoft Car Terrace in East Lincolnshire – yet another bye-law farce. They really do make it up as they go along.

~~~~~

Background

Readers may recall a series of article, from August 2014 to March 2015 reporting on the curious conduct of the Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) Legal Department

Particularly relevant to this present piece is the second half of “Councils: The Law Is An Ass”, first published on 27th March 2015, outlining the sheer sloppiness of the supporting documentation underlying the bye-law prohibiting motor-homes from parking overnight (11:00pm – 7:00am) on Huttoft Car Terrace.

LCC’s position had been spelt out by Mr Steve WILLIS Assistant Director for Environment, Planning & Customer Services, who was so sure of his ground as to tell the media that:

• “The legal process has already begun against a number of individuals caught breaching the byelaws by the police, and the council remains committed to seeing this legal action through to the end.”

Clearly, LCC was determined to pursue an untenable position, wasting who knows how much of the public purse in the process, by attempting prosecutions based on a terminally flawed bye-law.

LCC Chief Exec Tony McARDLE’s views on the matter also smacked of intransigence:

• “I note the comments of the Executive Councillor responsible and of various Council Officers in respect of the Council’s position and the actions that have taken[sic] to protect the public interest. It seems to me that as a consequence of these, no reasonable person could be left in any doubt as to what is permitted at the site and of the consequences of any action taken in defiance of that.”

Well, it turns out that the only “reasonable person” who matters (i.e. the Judge) profoundly disagrees with the pompobulous Mr McARDLE.

The Case

LCC persisted with a prosecution against one Alex SPROTT. They even obtained a conviction through the Boston Magistrates Court. But Alex SPROTT appealed that conviction and was last week acquitted, as reported in the East Lindsay Target under the title “Driver’s victory over Lincolnshire council sees £830 in parking penalties overturned” (03/08/15), from which I take the liberty of reproducing a few lines here, for readers’ convenience, because they make for  such a satisfying reading experience:

• Mr Sprott, 34, of Ascot Drive, Grantham, was originally convicted by Boston magistrates of two breaches of the bye-laws on May 11 and July 5. But he appealed the case at Lincoln Crown Court where he represented himself in front of a judge and two magistrates.
• After a 90-minute hearing he was cleared of both offences and awarded £669 costs against the county council.
• Mr Sprott said: “The council has wasted thousands of pounds of taxpayers money”
• Mr Sprott told the court that a police officer who later measured the vehicle found it was only 1.84m high and so not in breach of the regulation. But at the appeal Matthew Davey, the authority’s environment and community projects officer, admitted the van was never measured and instead he relied on details supplied by the manufacturer.
• Judge Rosemary Coe QC said: “We are satisfied that this first prosecution should never have been prosecuted.
  
• After the case Matthew Davey, Lincolnshire County Council’s environment and community projects officer, said: “We are, of course, disappointed with the decision.However, we will continue to monitor the car parks over the summer and seek to continue to enforce the bye-laws.”

In short, a thoroughly well-deserved drubbing.

But the important lesson here is that once again we encounter the sheer arrogance of the nabobs in their utter inability to admit when they are wrong – as they so very often are.  That arrogance comes with a price.

I shall be lodging a Freedom of Information request to elicit how much of the public purse has been squandered on this ludicrous exercise in obduracy. (If memory serves, LCC was about £25K into the Huttoft idiocy when I FOIA’d them back in March).

The sad result is that the cost of it will come from the public purse – not from the pockets of the incompetent staff of LCC’s Legal Department and their intransigent masters, where the burden should rightly fall.

For an in-depth round-up of the legal issues, please see campaigner Andy STRANGEWAY’s coverage here:

• https://andystrangeway.wordpress.com/2015/08/03/huttoft-car-terrace-the-future/

• an “In My View” article by NIGEL WARD, reporting on Lincolnshire County Council’s FOIA 13726308 response, disclosing something less than ‘value for money’.

~~~~~

Background

Readers may already be familiar with the general theme of some of my recent articles on the subject of Lincolnshire County Council (LCC):

• Lincolnshire Council Leadership – Open Letter
• Lincolnshire County Council – Counting The Cost Of Mendacity
• Dear Tony, Have You Heard About Prudence?
  

Essentially, the Council’s Legal Department has performed a comedy of errors in the processes used in an attempt to prohibit motor-homes from some of the Council’s off-street car-parks; notably, the Huttoft Car Terrace.

In short, a group of people whom one would expect to number amongst the finest legal brains in the country have somehow contrived to create an unenforceable by-law for the alleged purpose of controlling excess litter (for which offence general legislation is already in place, thus prohibiting the creation of a by-law) but, in fact – as evidence by the repeated introduction of equally illegal height-barriers – with the specific intention of excluding motor-home owners and permit-holding sea-anglers, thus preventing them from parking overnight.

In doing so, they have ignored the primary human rights of New Travellers as well as disabled motorists with high-sided vehicles used to transport their mobility-scooters. They have also contravened the terms of their own ‘Fisherman permits’.

Discriminating against people on grounds of ethnicity or disablement is rightly prohibited in the UK and throughout the European Community.

Surprisingly (or not?), the LCC legal eagles would appear to be unaware of that fact.

The LCC legal eagles have also given the green light to spending well over £100K on unsuccessfully attempting to enforce the unenforceable.

The whole episode is reminiscent of the disastrous blunder at City of York Council, who took £1.2M in PCNs off unsuspecting motorists via the illegal Lendal Bridge by-law – and is now hell-bent on not paying them back.It is reminiscent, too, of the cretinous SBC Legal Director who threatened the NYE team with civil and criminal legal action – all hot air – then subsequently was shown by the BBC ‘Inside Out’ documentary to be an unmitigated liar.

I thought it might be interesting to establish just exactly how much this Lincolnshire band of incompetents is costing the public purse in any given financial year, so I lodged an FOIA request, on 3rd September 2014, in an attempt to put a figure on it for 2012/13. The terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 allowed LCC until 2nd October 2014 to provide a full response.

The Embarrassing Facts

On 7th October 2014, I did indeed receive a full response to my FOIA request – out of time, true – but sooner than I expected.

I defined my request for information in such a way as to give readers a clear breakdown of how the public purse has been squandered by LCC Legal in the financial year 2013/14.

Without further ado, I present the details, below:

FOUR MILLION QUID – and enough small change left over to employ a dedicated car-park litter-picker for TEN YEARS plus – for a bunch of legal eagles who cannot fly a by-law without crash-landing it on Huttoft Car Terrace? That’s pretty steep.

Does the public really have to sit still for this level of bank-breaking, mind-numbing, high-handed incompetence?

And will someone explain to me how it can possibly be justifiable that the cream of the Lincolnshire legal crop – whose combined salaries/NHI/pensions amount to £2.7 million – has had to resort to springing an extra £855K on external advice?

Well, I guess it can – because LCC certainly does not appear to have anyone ‘in house’ who can read and comprehend the statute books.

Which is another way of saying that the LCC legal department is NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE.

That assessment will no doubt make Executive County Councillor Colin DAVIE [Con.] a very angry man.

But how could this ever arise? You know the answer:

• Too many years without public scrutiny.

• Too many years of woefully inadequate local press scrutiny, from papers that have become nothing more than mere advertising rags and TV-guides, masquerading as newspapers.

• Too many Councillors who cannot – or will not – take the time to read Officers’ reports and challenge them for the biased (but otherwise useless) dross that they really are.

How else could such consummate cretins as the LCC legal eagles ever have been appointed – let alone at such disproportionate salaries?

Our elected representatives are asleep at the wheel, lapping up the Allowances and Expenses.

But the times (as they say) are a-changing.

The newsblogs have arrived.

It is often said (and rightly) that disaffected electors may seek their remedy at the next election.

That may take care of sundry yes-men and ethnically insensitive Officer-pawns like Executive County Councillor Colin DAVIE [Con.], whose reported antipathy to the disabled is a matter of public record.

But what about the Officers – those incompetent (over)paid public servants who simply could not hack it outside of the cloistered confines of their ivory towers, yet run our Councils as private fiefdoms – while the electorate picks up the tab for their excesses and errors?

How will the electorate purge the system of these parasites and freeloaders (if I may borrow Colin DAVIE’s misdirected slur against New Travellers)?

Only by electing competent Councillors who are capable of scrutinising the Officers. the NYE stands ready to assist.

I leave you with a glimpse of the electioneering leaflets currently ‘littering’ the off-street car-parks of Lincolnshire. The North Yorks Enquirer does not condone litter. One might hope that LCC will do something about gathering the leaflets and disposing of them in an appropriate manner.

• an “In My View” article by NIGEL WARD, reporting directly to Lincolnshire County Council Chief Executive Tony Mc ARDLE; a gentle heads-up to the duties of his office.

~~~~~

Tony,

I write to you about Prudence.

It is with regret and, I confess, a measure of sadness, that I discovered that I had failed to elicit any senseful response to my Open Letter to you of 16th August 2014. I regard that as an opportunity missed on your part. The response that I did receive from you, on 19th August 2104, was empty of any discernible substantive meaning.

Nevertheless, I did take the time to respond to you, and, if you recall, I included in my comments the following pearl of wisdom:

“The first legislation that Tony McARDLE must (yes, must) consider is his responsibility under the terms of the Human Rights Act 1998. The Act provides that it is unlawful for a public authority to act in such a way as to contravene the European Convention on Human Rights.”

You are, of course, already aware of that. But I write to a wider readership (amongst whom I am pleased to include members of your Legal department), whom I hope to inform and entertain.

Like you, they are (no doubt) punctilious in their consideration of Human Rights legislation. Unfortunately, there appears to have been a significant oversight.

The Human Rights Act 1998 is quite clear on the subject of ethnic minorities:

Article 14 Prohibition of discrimination

The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.

Page 5 of this document offers some very helpful guidance in respect of law enforcement.

I would suggest that your Legal department, no doubt in response to the highly-sensitized matter of ethnicity, has overlooked the importance of establishing a clear understanding of what is meant by the term “ethnic minority”. Please join me for a moment in an inspection of the ramifications in respect of motor-home owners and overnight parking – or “camping” as your colleague Executive County Councillor Colin DAVIE prefers to term it.

Consider these definitions, provided in the Joint Agency Protocol for Responding to Unauthorised Encampments:

Our present concern is with that last grouping – ‘New Travellers’. But who exactly are these ‘New Travellers’? I have more than a suspicion that they are users of motor-homes, Tony, and Lincolnshire County Council must respect their rights – whether it sits well or ill with Executive county Councillor Colin DAVIE and his cronies. Indeed, many of those who have stayed on Huttoft Car Terrace for extended periods have now confirmed that they are, and indeed have been for a number of years, New Travellers – an acknowledged ethnic group.

It would appear obvious and indeed fundamental to the very concept of human rights that those who have elected to pursue an itinerant or nomadic life-style have done no more than exercise their right to live a legitimate way of life. They are entitled to the same protection under the law as everyone else – free from harassment, with equitable access to services and with a full measure of respect for their legitimate choice of lifestyle.

So it is difficult to see how it will be lawful for them to be prevented from entering the Huttoft Car Terrace on the basis of their ethnicity, or on the basis that their mobile-homes exceed an arbitrary height-limit of 1.9 metres, or indeed that they should be prohibited from using the Car Terrace during the same hours as, say, sea anglers – who are not an acknowledged ethnic group.

And has the County Council considered the implications of its duties in respect of Children’s Services?

The byelaw that the County Council has seen fit to enact is entirely inappropriate to the County Council’s purpose:

LINCOLNSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

BYELAWS FOR PLEASURE GROUNDS, PUBLIC WALK AND OPEN SPACES

PART TWO

ARRANGEMENT OF THE GROUND, ITS WILDLIFE AND THE PUBLIC

Overnight Parking

5. No person shall without the consent of the Council leave or cause or permit to be left any motor vehicle in the ground between the hours of 10:00pm and 6:00am.

Savings

7.2 Nothing in or done under these byelaws shall in any respect prejudice or injuriously affect any public right of way through the ground, or the rights of any person acting lawfully by virtue of some estate, right or interest in, over or affecting the ground or any part of the ground.

And then we must consider this:

I hope you will now grasp the difficulty, Tony.

Not only do New Travellers now stand to be discriminated against by a byelaw invoked under legislation appropriate to quite other purposes (namely, regulating “pleasure grounds, public walks and open spaces” – and not, you will note, Car Parks), they also stand to fall victim to a discriminatory byelaw whose very existence is prohibited by law.

Moreover, any arbitrary height-barriers that will “injuriously affect any public right of way through the ground” will further infringe upon the rights of the New Travellers, whose right of way is as sacrosanct as that of any other member of the public.

Together, these fundamental errors on the part of your Legal department add up to what my poor old dad used to refer to as “a prize cock-up”. Whilst abhorring my father’s chosen terminology, I find that I have to concur. What about you?

Clearly, unless the County Council intends to disregard the requirements of law, it will be necessary to reconsider the steps it has taken – and reputedly intends to continue to take – to address its legitimate concerns regarding “the impact on residents in the area as they are being subjected to noise, nuisance, excessive litter, fires from campfires, and verbal abusefrom some of the peoplecamping”.

Back to the drawing-board, Tony. Time for a little prudence. Keep the noise down, please. Try not to be a nuisance. Spare the public purse the unjustifiable expense of illegal height-barriers (and spend a small part of the savings on a couple of part-time jobs picking up excessive litter and providing a couple of fire-extinguishers to curtail any danger to the public arising from fires, and, above all, no more verbal abuse, please – and I refer, of course, to Executive County Councillor Colin DAVIE [Con.] and County Councillor Stephen PALMER [Ind.] (a member – I note, no surprise – of the Community and Public Safety Scrutiny Committee, no less) and their use – on television and in the press – of the extremely offensive and pejorative term “freeloaders” in reference to an acknowledged ethnic minority – the New Travellers.

Tony, please explain to me how it is in any way acceptable for County Councillors to refer to New Travellers as “freeloaders”? To what vocabulary do they resort when referring to people from other ethnic minorities? If I learn of any inappropriate references to Yorkshiremen, I can tell you now that there will be a negative impact on their public personae. Not ‘alf, t’o’d flower!

Could I ask you to teach them the rudiments of respect, please, Tony? The first Nolan Principle? And please do me the kindness of informing your Monitoring Officer that I hereby lodge a Formal Complaint against Executive County Councillor Colin DAVIE and Councillor Stephen PALMER in respect of their flagrant and utterly unforgivable breaches of the Councillors’ Code of Conduct. FREELOADERS, indeed. I am shocked and horrified that such experienced public servants could even contemplate such offensive language in reference to an acknowledged ethnic minority. Not only is it crass and insensitive; in an election year it is tantamount to political suicide. It certainly reflects very poorly on their respective political affiliates. Resignation would appear the most diplomatic option – and the most honourable. I trust you will exercise Prudence and lose no time in formulating a tactful form of words to point them in the right direction.

In short, please demonstrate to the people of Lincolnshire that the £207,378 per annum that they invest in your salary is not entirely ill-spent.

There’s a good chap.

Kind regards,

Nigel

PS – I am so concerned about the ‘value for money’ and ‘fitness for purpose’ aspects of the Legal Services department that LLC maintains in partnership with Boston Borough Council, East Lindsey District Council, North Kesteven District Council, South Holland District Council and West Lindsey District Council that I have submitted an FOIA request. You are very welcome to view it here:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/gross_cost_of_lcc_legal_services/new

• an “In My View” article by NIGEL WARD, reporting on a response from Mr Tony McARDLE, the Chief Executive Officer of Lincolnshire County Council (LCC), to my own OPEN LETTER to him, Leader County Councillor Martin HILL and Executive County Councillor Colin DAVIE – in which I demonstrated the consummate dishonesty of a number of Council spokespersons, including Executive County Councillor Colin DAVIE.

~~~~~

Background

A week ago, I challenged Lincolnshire County Council Chief Executive Officer Tony McARDLE and Leader County Councillor Martin HILL, in an Open Letter, to mobilise their powers of LEADERSHIP and rein in the paid public servants in their Council who are proven liars on the subject of the stand-off over Huttoft Car Terrace.

Predictably, only Tony McARDLE has responded – and he has sunk to the occasion with a weasel-worded pseudo-response.

In sharp contrast, the Enquirer’s readership response to my Open Letter, both from members of the public and from elected members of several Councils, has been one of deep concern that the public face of Lincolnshire County Council should have been exposed in great detail as a face of shameless dishonesty.

Essentially, a series of emails showed that, from Executive County Councillor Colin DAVIE down to the front-line spin-merchants of the Council’s Legal department, a raft of untruths has been propagated in an apparent propaganda campaign designed to justify the waste of over £150K of the tax-payers money – to uphold a flawed bye-law.

I reproduce LCC Chief Exec Tony McARDLE’s ‘response’ here, interpolated with my own comments, on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis, for ease of deconstruction:

On 19th August at 16:48, Tony McARDLE wrote to me:

Dear Sir, 

I refer to your email communication of 16 August. 

It is clear from your open letter that you are fully aware of the Council’s intent in respect of the operation of its Car Park at Huttoft, and of the bye-laws that have been put in place to give effect to this. 

I am, indeed aware; and I will address the matter of “the bye-laws that have been put in place” later in this article.

I note the comments of the Executive Councillor responsible and of various Council Officers in respect of the Council’s position and the actions that have taken[sic] to protect the public interest. It seems to me that as a consequence of these, no reasonable person could be left in any doubt as to what is permitted at the site and of the consequences of any action taken in defiance of that.  

“Defiance”, eh? Quite the little martinet.

It would appear to me that Tony McARDLE remains unrepentant regarding the astonishing waste of tax-payers money that the Council’s various attempts to discriminate against lawful users of vehicles exceeding 1.9 metres in height (he means motor-homes) has already incurred.

Tony McARDLE also appears unrepentant regarding the outrageous evasion and untruth practised by his Legal staff and an Executive Councillor. Quite how he proposes to “protect the public interest” by supporting the practice of repeatedly lying to the public remains unclear to me.

I note, too, his oblique insinuation that I am not a reasonable man. Presumably, Tony McARDLE takes the view that reasonable men are perfectly comfortable about being lied to repeatedly by paid public servants. I will return to just how well paid they are at the foot of this article; for the moment, suffice it to say that the three gentlemen in receipt of my Open Letter are also happen to be in receipt of over a quarter of a million pounds per annum, between them – £207,378 of which goes to a man who cannot compose a coherent letter – much less shoulder this responsibility for the welter of lies heaped up by LCC Legal staff in defence of the original lies of County Councillor Colin DAVIE. It is noteworthy that Secreatary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric PICKLES has commented on this topic thus: “No council chief executives should be appointed on a salary greater than the Prime Minister’s £142,500”. Leader County Councillor Martin HILL reckons that his colleague Tony McARDLE is worth 50% more than the Prime Minister. How cosy.

The Council is clear in its responsibility to the very many legitimate users of this car park and to local residents and is resolute in its determination that the facility will be operated accordingly. 

I understand that you have previously been advised of the Council’s complaints procedure. This procedure remains available to you if you continue to be dissatisfied with the Council’s actions. 

Yours sincerely,

Tony McArdle

Chief Executive

That is the entirety of Mr McARDLE’s email to me of 19th August 2014. It is artless blather, unworthy of the dodgiest of used car salesmen.

Operate the facility ‘accordingly’, by all means, Tony; but without discrimination, please.

The first legislation that Tony McARDLE must (yes, must) consider is his responsibility under the terms of the Human Rights Act 1998. The Act provides that it is unlawful for a public authority to act in such a way as to contravene the European Convention on Human Rights – by discriminating, for example, according to gender. For example, Lincolnshire County Council issued well over a hundred Overnight Parking Permits to ‘Fishermen‘, which breaches the gender discrimination clauses of the HRA ’98. The correct gender-neutral terminology would be ‘Anglers’.

This is all semantic petty-fogging, of course; but semantic petty-fogging is what lawyers do. Well-paid lawyers usually do it impeccably. Not this shower.

Returning to the Council’s Complaints procedure: Tony McARDLE knows – as everyone knows – that the Complaints Procedure is not fit for purpose – just as the North Yorkshire Police and the IPCC Complaints Procedures, County Council’s Complaints procedures are not fit for purpose – according, that is, to North Yorkshire Police & Crime Commissioner Julia MULLIGAN.

As an example, North Yorkshire County Council received 37 Formal Complaints in a recent five-year period. One was fully upheld, and one only partially. The offending County Councillors were asked (that’s right, asked – not required) to make an apology and submit to a 15-minute ‘re-training session’ with the Monitoring Officer. The other 35 were exonerated. Nothing to see here, folks. Keep shopping.

Tedious though it is to jump through the hoops of the local authority’s internal gobbledygook, the honest complainant may wish to point out to the Council the errors of its ways. Hopefully he (or she) will.

But to lodge a Formal Complaint against Executive County Councillor Colin DAVIE would incur considerable burden on the public purse, often amounting to well in excess of £10K. Tony McARDLE’s suggestion that I may wish to seek redress under the Council’s Complaints Procedure is not an attractive proposition; the transgressor gets to enjoy a cup of coffee with Monitoring Officer Richard WILLS, whose duties include “ensuring that the County Council acts and operates within the law. He or she has a duty to report to the whole Council if the Council has broken or may have broken the law” – while circa ten grand of the public purse is squandered in service of the complainant obtaining no satisfaction whatever. A familiar enough tale.

Thanks, Tony – but no thanks.

And I wonder when Monitoring Officer Richard WILLS will fulfil to his “duty to report to the whole Council” that “Council has broken or may have broken the law”?

For Tony McARDLE, that notional £10K on a Standards Committee hearing would be money well spent, since it would formalise the conclusion that  Executive County Councillor Colin DAVIE has done nothing wrong in lying to press and public. Equally, Corporate Complaints against the lying Legal Officers who attempted to cover for him will also prove futile. And of course, it is not Tony McARDLE’s £10K; it is the public who must foot the bill.

So, thank you, Tony – but I prefer to prosecute my case in the court of public opinion, where you will be damned as a spineless human shield for despicable liars. The choice was yours. You could have demonstrated your qualities of LEADERSHIP and dealt with the matter with integrity and honour – if you had any. Instead, you have admitted nothing; and you have omitted everything that matters.

What Mr McARDLE omits

Mr McARDLE omits a great deal.

Mr McARDLE omits to apologise on behalf of Executive County Councillor Colin DAVIE, who lied – and has been shown irrefutably to have lied – to the media. Come to that, Colin DAVIE has not granted me the courtesy of any response at all, much less the apology that he owes to me and to the wider public.

Mr McARDLE also omits to apologise on behalf of his Legal staff, who lied – and have been shown irrefutably to have lied – to me. If he sees no reason to assume the rôle of corporate groveller – and, in the £200K+ salary-band that Mr McARDLE inhabits, corporate grovellers are thin on the ground – he does have the authority over his staff (though not over anyone else in this land) to instruct them to provide appropriate apologies. But no. He is quite content to stand behind their lies.

We can only conclude that there will be no corporate “Hands up, guv. You got me bang to rights. Lessons have been learned”

• Yet they lied when they told the media there had been “hundreds of complaints” about motor-homes on the Huttoft Car Terrace. Pure fiction. The Council’s own records confirm that there were only sixteen.
• They lied when they told the media that “forty summonses” had been issued. Pure fiction. The Magistrates’ Court has confirmed that no summonses have been issued at all.
• They lied when they stated that a “legal process” was already underway. Pure fiction. No papers have been laid before the Court.

These overpaid, under-talented, unaccountable mediocrities have lied relentlessly – and remorselessly.

The legal issues

LCC has sought to impose a prohibition on motor-homes parking over-night at Huttoft Car Terrace by the application of a bye-law – and this despite the fact that the the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) must be satisfied that “the council has taken any measures short of seeking a byelaw to remedy the problem in question”. In fact, the Council cannot create a byelaw that duplicates national legislation.

The LCC Principal Solicitor has justified the Council’s attempt to prohibit motor-home owners via the spurious creation of a byelaw, thus:

• “There are continuous problems – mainly throughout the warmer season – with people camping (with motor homes etc) and parking overnight. This is having an impact on the residents in the area as they are being subjected to noise, nuisance, excessive litter, fires from campfires, and verbal abuse from some of the people camping”.

But the truth is that no evidence has been tabled that would indicate that any of the alleged “noise, nuisance, excessive litter, fires from campfires, and verbal abuse from some of the people camping” is in any way attributable to motor-home users in particular – and certainly not to them alone. On top of which, LCC wishes to prohibit all motor-home owners as a measure to curtail the above-mentioned transgressions, which it attributes (without evidence) to only “some of the people camping”. That is akin to banning all cars from the highways on the grounds that some drivers exceed the speed-limit.

Nevertheless, someone at LCC has seen fit to create a new bye-law – despite clear guidance from central government that byelaws must in no circumstances duplicate existing legislation.

Other legislation exists that adequately addresses “noise” and “nuisance” and “verbal abuse”. (LCC must be aware of the by-now infamous ASBO – Anti-Social Behaviour Order).

As for “fires from campfires”; to quote the Gov.uk website: “There are no laws against having a bonfire, but there are laws for the nuisance they can cause.” It follows that LCC may draw upon such laws – without the creation of a new (illegal) bye-law.

So with “noise”, “nuisance”, “campfires” and “verbal abuse” already covered by existing legislation, there remains only the allegation that motor-home owners are (solely) responsible for any “excessive litter”, to the exclusion of all others who use the Huttoft Car Terrace.

The reality is that the vast majority of littering takes place during daylight hours – not between 10:00pm and 6:00am. In any case, as stated above, the Council cannot create a bye-law to prohibit the dropping of “excessive litter”, since it is already prohibited under existing legislation and byelaws may not be created in duplication of existing legislation. (I know; you already got that. Why didn’t they?).

Amusingly, LCC has actually confessed to breaking the law in this case; they have failed to ensure their land (Huttoft Car Terrace) is “so far as is practicable, kept clear of litter and refuse”, and their recourse to an illegal bye-law for that purpose simply highlights the extraordinary incompetence of their Legal department. Remind me – what rhymes with ‘bankers’?

To summarise; this whole overblown extravaganza of ineptitude was designed specifically to target motor-home users – who have not been identified as the sole perpetrators of “noise”, “nuisance”, “fires”, “verbal abuse” or the leaving of “excessive litter”. In fact, and as far as I am aware, no motor-home owner has even been charged (much less convicted) of any of these transgressions.

LCC has illegally created a bye-law that seeks to exclude, between the hours of 10:00pm and 6:00am, ONLY those vehicles that exceed 1.9 metres in height (meaning motor-homes), and the grounds cited for doing so are all entirely spurious.

On top of which, LCC has lied profusely in defence of this arrant nonsense.

Why?

The Real Reason Behind The LCC Motor-Home VENDETTA?

Why (you ask) would a County Council embroil itself in a monumental waste of public money and a humiliating catalogue of flimsy lies – just to prevent motor-homes from being used for the purpose that they were built and (sold) to fulfil?

I know what you are thinking; “There has to be a vested interest”.

The word on the dunes is that there is indeed a vested interest.

Sandilands Golf Course, which abuts the Huttoft Car Terrace, is presently in the ownership of the Grange & Links Hotel – where business is less than buoyant. In fact, according to the local newspaper – the Louth Leader – the business has been placed into administration:

“A buyer is still being sought out for the premises and could be sold as a full package with both the hotel and golf course included or there could be an option of selling the two off separately. Although negotiations for the sale of The Grange and Links is still in its early stages.”

That was in January 2014. Those “negotiations” are a little further down the road now than they were back in January. And a few well-placed phone calls have confirmed that a Lincolnshire consortium is looking not at the hotel, but at the golf course – with a view to a massive caravan site development. When the right strings have been pulled, Huttoft Car Terrace will conveniently be swallowed up by the march of ‘progress’ – and no ‘freeloading’ bunch of motor-home owners will be suffered to stand in its way.

A Lincolnshire consortium, did you say? An influential Lincolnshire consortium? Hmmm.

So I would say that Mr Tony McARDLE is a damned fool.

For the price of a few kindly words of apology, he has bought into the Lincolnshire consortium coming under d-e-e-p-e-s-t scrutiny. I have no doubt that Executive County Councillor Colin DAVIE will be highly delighted.

• an “In My View” article by NIGEL WARD, in the form of an Open Letter to the Leader and the Chief Executive Officer of Lincolnshire County Council (LCC). Recent public statements regarding the Huttoft Car Terrace ‘stand-off’ have now been demonstrated to be fictitious. There is nothing like an honest Council – and LCC looks nothing like an honest one.

~~~~~

IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST

Background

Though ‘out of area’ for the North Yorks Enquirer, Lincolnshire is a near neighbour that, like North Yorkshire, comprises a predominantly rural population that has a considerable dependency on tourism and seaside attractions. Both Counties attract prodigious numbers of holidaymakers. Both are popular destinations for owners of motor-homes and caravans. It follows that developments in one may have ramifications for the other.

My own town – Whitby – has a love/hate relationship with tourism in general – and with motor-homes in particular. The tourists are welcome for the money that they bring into the town; less so for the attendant traffic congestion. One specific bone of contention is the on- and off-street parking of motor-homes, whose owners, though generally well-heeled, are accused of obstructing views, leaving a mess and bringing little to the local economy in the way of spending.

Just as Whitby has been provided with the Whitby Park-&-Ride facility (built with central government funding, maintained through on-street parking revenue) which closes at 7:00pm, the seaside village of Huttoft on the Lincolnshire coast has been provided with the Huttoft Car Terrace, where vehicles over 1.9 metres in height are presently the subject of a botched 10:00pm-6:00am exclusion process – a fiercely contended issue, with local and regional Lincolnshire newspapers. BBC Look North and ITV Calendar covering the action.

Hoping to get to the bottom of the most recent spat in the row, I emailed Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) Strategic Communications Officer Ethan THORPE. He was not helpful, but he soon passed me up the monkey-puzzle tree to one Leigh MIDDLETON, who styles himself Principal Solicitor – so at least as far as legal issues are concerned, I assumed had reached the top man. In all, fourteen emails were exchanged with LCC Legal without me eliciting the information I sought, and yet Leigh MIDDLETON concluded it by averring that he would not correspond further on the subject. I have been dismissed.

Clearly, this is no way for a paid public servant to respond to a simple request for clarification of the most recent in a series of spurious press statements issued by the Council.

So I have decided to take the matter up with County Councillor Martin HILL OBE [Con.], the Leader of Lincolnshire County Council, and his Chief Executive Officer Mr Tony McARDLE – both by email (Cc: Executive County Councillor Colin DAVIE [Con.], and in an Open Letter here on the North Yorks Enquirer, below. Should I expect a response?

~~~~~

OPEN LETTER

To:      County Councillor and Leader Martin HILL O.B.E. cllrm.hill@lincolnshire.gov.uk

            Chief Exec and Head of Paid Service Mr Tony McARDLE Tony.McArdle@lincolnshire.gov.uk

Cc:      Executive County Councillor Colin DAVIE cllrc.davie@lincolnshire.gov.uk

IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST

Gentleman,

I address you in the public domain – the court of public opinion, as I like to consider it – on a matter of conspicuous public interest relating to a series of statements issued on behalf of the Council by Executive County Councillor Colin DAVIE [Con.], et alia, that gives every appearance of comprising, at the very best, hyperbole and, at the worst, a tissue of downright lies. Let the public form its opinion.

I enumerate these statements as follows:

1) The “HUNDREDS of complaints” Statement

Councillor Colin DAVIE’s assertion to the BBC, in justification of the Council’s hostility to motorhomes parking overnight at the Huttoft Car Terrace, that “hundreds of complaints” had been received from local residents. It should be noted that the fact that County Councillor Colin DAVIE [Con.] made these remarks has been confirmed by the BBC. In due course, and through the auspices of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the true figure was elicited – twenty-four. If this is mere hyperbole, it is so by an order of magnitude. To place it in perspective, this is not unlike a man boasting of owning ten cars when, in truth, he has but one – and that on lease.

It will be noted that of these twenty-four, only sixteen include mention of motor-homes or campervans specifically. Executive County Councillor Colin DAVIE’s “hundreds” is stretched to the bitter limits of disingenuousness. Clearly, this was nothing other than a premeditated falsehood designed to whip up support for the Council’s draconian vendetta against motor-home owners. Neither more, nor less.

2) The “Forty Summonses” Statement

Again, it was County Councillor Colin DAVIE [Con.]who addressed the media with the statement:

1. “With the help of Lincolnshire Police who are working with us, 40 notices of court summons have now been issued to those who have been in breach of the by-laws, which could result in a maximum fine of £500 plus court costs.”

That was on Wednesday 18th June 2014. It is (or would have been, were it not for the lesson of the previous example) a matter of no small surprise that the mythical “forty summonses” have failed to arrive at their respective destinations. Every last one of them. Not one of the members of the National Motorhome Organisation who have visited Huttoft Car Terrace has reported the arrival of correspondence from the courts of any kind, summonses not excluded.

So, once again, it appears that Executive County Councillor Colin DAVIE [Con.] has uttered a fabrication with no discernibly truthful foundation whatever.

3) The “Legal Action Has Been Commenced” Statement

I refer you now to a statement issued on behalf of the Council by Mr Steve WILLIS Assistant Director for Environment, Planning & Customer Services, who I would judge (from his impressive list of portfolios) to be a member of the County Council’s Officer Executive; in particular, Mr Steve WILLIS stated:

1. “The legal process has already begun against a number of individuals caught breaching the byelaws by the police, and the council remains committed to seeing this legal action through to the end.”

The phrase “The legal process has already begun . . .” is an unequivocal statement expressing the information that court action has commenced. But nothing has been lodged with any Court in Lincolnshire that might serve to confirm the veracity of Mr Steve WILLIS’s statement, which is an arrant falsehood.

I was loath to believe that another spokesperson acting on behalf of the Councillor could be afflicted with the same disregard for the truth that County Councillor Colin DAVIE [Con.] has demonstrated. So, at 4:26pm on 8th August 2014 (hold on to that time and date, please), I emailed your Strategic Communications Officer Mr Ethan THORPE, pointing out the spurious nature of Mr WILLIS’s remarks and requesting a correction. I stated:

“No claims have been lodged with the courts. No summonses have been served. The matter is not yet sub judice. Ergo, the legal process has not begun. The statement is false.

At the very least, the Council’s News Release is little more than disingenuous bluster, unbefitting servants of the public, who are bound by the Officers’ Code of Conduct to treat others with respect at all times, in accordance with the first Nolan Principle of Public Life. It is manifestly disrespectful to the public to issue false statements.

I therefore formally request that the Council issues a revised News Release more reflective of the true state of affairs.”

I regarded that as a reasonable and prudent request, courteously delivered, and I anticipated an immediate and transparent statement of clarification from the Council.

Astonishingly, there followed a protracted exchange of fourteen emails, during which Mr Ethan THORPE passed me to Mr Leigh MIDDLETON, who proved equally unable to make the decisive distinction between “investigations are on-going” and “the legal process has been commenced”.

For the avoidance of doubt, the distinction is this:

An “investigation”, unless premeditatedly and maliciously biased, may lead to a prosecution. Equally, it may not. Only at the conclusion of the investigation can that be ascertained.

Conversely, a “legal process” can only be said to have begun when formal charges have been laid before the Court.

This distinction is clear and it is important because it highlights the crux of the burgeoning public mistrust of local government, nationwide. The public abhors double-talk, and I concur.

But the clincher – the ‘silver bullet’ – arrived on Saturday 15th August, a week after I first approached Mr Ethan THORPE, when I found myself copied into an email sent by him to a member of the public at 1:12pm on 8th August 2014.

4) The “Simple Truth” Statement

You will recall, gentlemen, that my email to Mr Ethan THORPE was sent at 4:26pm on 8th August 2014 – over three hours after Mr Ethan THORPE had already stated the following:

• “It is correct that no formal proceedings have been laid before the Court . . .”

. . . which is all I wished clarified in the first place. Mr Steve WILLIS Assistant Director for Environment, Planning & Customer Services – who was copied into that same email – was being massively disingenuous when he told the media that:

• “The legal process has already begun against a number of individuals caught breaching the byelaws by the police, and the council remains committed to seeing this legal action through to the end.”

Can you explain to the public, gentlemen, why Mr Steve WILLIS’s bare-faced lie should be acceptable to the public?

Can you explain to the public, gentlemen, why it was good value-for-money that your Council Officers – paid public servants – played pat-a-cake with me over fourteen exchanged emails which, now the truth is known, were expended solely on the construction of a stone wall of zero transparency in defence of Executive County Councillor Colin DAVIE [Con.] and Mr Steve WILLIS, who, in fact, had lied in their teeth to press and public? Please explain that.

Considerable officer-time and no doubt a deal of intra-departmental discussion was expended on the pointless task of attempting to avoid the disclosure of what had already been disclosed.

The net outcome of this exercise has been to portray the Council as a collective of fools – and liars. Really quite deplorable.

Time and again within the cloistered environment of Council Legal departments, solicitors of at best mediocre talents are being promoted far beyond their competency and experience. They are suffused by a sense of self-importance and omnipotence, buttressed by inflated salaries and plum pensions, and they are incapable of admitting error – or even of condescending to approach the negotiating table.

What conclusion should the public draw from this, gentlemen?

Is it the case that from Executive County Councillor Colin DAVIE [Con.], near the top of the Lincolnshire monkey-puzzle tree, down through descending serried layers of legal eagles to Mr Ethan THORPE, the propaganda wing of Lincolnshire County Council is populated by congenital liars?

Or should the public beware of shooting the messenger – lest the true source of this series of utter fabrications is to be found at the very top of the tree?

I would be grateful if you would offer the public a transparent statement on this question. What is the name of the true source of all this bullshit?

Deeply disturbing, too, is Executive County Councillor Colin DAVIE’s extraordinary statement to the press:

• “ I will decide on what the council will do next . . .”

The people will decide what part our delusional Executive County Councillor Colin DAVIE [Con.] will play as a paid public servant in Lincolnshire. Such is democracy.

Lincolnshire County Council now stands in the embarrassing position not only of having adopted a high-handed and adversarial posture against members of the public, whom it is mandated to serve, but of having resorted to stupid and indefensible distortions of the truth to bolster its weak and morally indefensible policy.

So I call upon you both now, as public servants at the top of your respective careers, to resolve the present stand-off in an honourable and humanistic way. Do not succumb to the blandishments of lickspittles and minions whose advice is worse than worthless. Meet with the motor-home owners in an apologetic and conciliatory spirit. Cut them a fair deal.

In short, demonstrate your capacity to exemplify the seventh Nolan Principle – LEADERSHIP.

‘Authority’ is the assumption of ultimate responsibility. Please bear it wisely.

If that much is beyond you, you will need to prepare for an onslaught of public contempt.

Yours, with very kind regards,

Nigel

North Yorks Enquirer