Bristol ULEZ

[Bper]

Bristol council bosses are refusing to pay back £31million in bogus fines from the city's ULEZ scheme, known as the Clean Air Zone despite the project's chief admitting that every charge had been worded incorrectly. 

[Haliotis]

If Alan Bates could organise 700 sub-postmasters to bring down the Post Office, then hundreds of motorists should be able to bring down Bristol Council.  If the charges are incorrectly worded, then they are not lawful.

[Paul john]

13 minutes ago, Haliotis said:

If Alan Bates could organise 700 sub-postmasters to bring down the Post Office, then hundreds of motorists should be able to bring down Bristol Council.  If the charges are incorrectly worded, then they are not lawful.

I’m confident you can find 555 people to be convicted and jailed then overturn the court case 20 years later. 

[Bper]

It's amazing how the comparison between the Post office Horizon scandal and these incorrectly worded fines are.You would think these people would learn from this. So bet there will be court cases and eventually a public enquiry into the whole ULEZ debacle.

What times we live in.😠

[Haliotis]

£31 million worth of fines which are potentially bogus cannot be simply disregarded.

[Bper]

52 minutes ago, Haliotis said:

£31 million worth of fines which are potentially bogus cannot be simply disregarded.

It's probably going to take a group litigation to bring this to court as the council will be using it's normal tactic of denying any wrong doing and arguing that the wording whilst technically wrong doesn't excuse the offence.

They will fight this through the courts and in the mean time continue to rake in more millions in fines. I find it incredibly how all these councils always deny that this is not about revenue raising when it is crystal clear to us that it is.

[Haliotis]

Without exception, all councils will take any steps they are confident that they can get away with to squeeze more cash out of the residents.  Cutting back on their spending is a last resort - that’s why councils are declaring risk of bankruptcy, simply because they ignore the obvious warning signs until it is too late.

”Specialist” groups within councils spend our money on pet projects for which council tax was never intended.  Very few councillors have any financial expertise that qualifies them to deal professionally with public finances.  Yet, at their meetings, they can vote through decisions which will later create problems that ultimately result in more extraction of cash from taxpayers’ pockets.

Imagine, without central government constraint on the annual increase in council tax (which worryingly could be abandoned at any time), the eye watering increases that councils would load onto residents!