City hit by legal fight on road toll poll plan

COUNCIL chiefs in Midlothian have launched a legal challenge to block Edinburgh’s referendum on road tolls.

The local authority has instructed lawyers to seek an injunction at the Court of Session to stop the toll poll going ahead in February.

The legal team will argue the referendum should not be allowed to go ahead as the city council’s scheme is "technically illegal".

The court challenge has been sparked by the city council’s decision to grant congestion charge exemptions to people in rural west Edinburgh.

Midlothian Council leader Adam Montgomery said lawyers would seek a judicial review and an interdict which would block the referendum.

He said: "The advice we have been given is the referendum is open to a legal challenge.

"If the judicial review fails, we will have the option of taking out an interdict. We have never gone to court for an interdict before, but we feel this is an unfair scheme.

"We want to block this referendum so that, at the very least, it gives Edinburgh another opportunity to look at the arguments we are putting forward. We feel it is wrong that people in Mid, East and West Lothian and Fife who are going to be affected by this scheme can’t vote on it.

"This is going on while people in Queensferry, Currie and Balerno are being asked to vote on a scheme they are not going to be affected by. It is unfair. We are hoping other local authorities will come in with us to mount this challenge."

Midlothian claims the city council’s scheme is "technically illegal" as it breaches the Transport Act, which gives local authority’s the power to set up road charging schemes. The central thrust of their argument is the Edinburgh scheme is "unfair" due to the exemptions for rural west Edinburgh residents.

Several thousand people living in Currie, Balerno, Juniper Green, Ratho, South Queensferry and Kirkliston will escape the 2-a-day charge under the council’s plans. But motorists living in neighbouring communities outside the city bypass and outside the city council boundary will have to pay the charge to drive into the Capital.

The city council is pressing ahead with the exemption despite three Scottish Executive reporters who headed a ten-week investigation into the Labour-run city council’s proposals asking for that part of the scheme to be thrown out.

The Executive reporters said dropping the exemption for those people was "essential" to ensure the congestion charging scheme was fair.

Despite the council promising to accept the inquiry finding, it has refused to drop the exemptions. Council leader Donald Anderson and city transport leader Andrew Burns had insisted on the exemption against the advice of their own officials, legal advisers and bosses at Transport Initiatives Edinburgh, the council’s arm’s-length firm behind the scheme.

Midlothian’s transport leader Jim Muirhead said: "We must press ahead with a legal challenge [to the tolls referendum] and while we will explore the opportunities of a joint approach with our neighbouring authorities, we are prepared to go it alone."

Councillor Willie Dunn, West Lothian Council’s enterprise and development leader, said: "We will be consulting with Midlothian over the possibility of mounting a joint legal challenge over this issue."

And Mike Rumney, chairman of Fife Council’s environment and development committee, added: "We note Midlothian Council’s legal challenge and will continue to discuss the options for a joint challenge whilst taking our own legal advice."

Councillor Andrew Burns, the Capital’s transport leader, said: "If we are to meet national congestion-reduction targets, as set by the Scottish Executive, there is no realistic alternative to an urban congestion charging scheme - the recent Public Inquiry agreed completely with this statement of fact.

"We remain entirely confident of the strength of the case behind the current congestion charging scheme which will go to a public referendum in Edinburgh next February.

"If Midlothian do, at any time, pursue legal action, we will robustly defend the current scheme and are confident that any such expensive challenge would ultimately fail."