Council begins legal action over roads funding

North Yorkshire Council has begun legal action against York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority over a decision which council chiefs say will mean a £20m loss in funds for road repairs.

The council is seeking a judicial review after the combined authority (CA) agreed the four-year Transport Capital Programme budget without the council's backing.

Council leader Carl Les and deputy Gareth Dadd said government funding for other transport schemes had been "top-sliced" by York and North Yorkshire's Mayor David Skaith.

Skaith, who backed the budget along with City of York Council chiefs, said the action was a "political stunt which could waste thousands and thousands of pounds of taxpayer money".

A change to the calculation for road maintenance funding, which will mean £4m of North Yorkshire Council's allocation being diverted to City of York Council, has also been opposed by Les and Dadd.

A letter before action sent by the Conservative-led North Yorkshire Council's assistant chief executive Barry Khan claims legal errors were made when the decision was taken on 27 March.

It said the letter was sent "urgently" as a "transparent attempt to alert the CA to the clear legal errors that occurred and provide the opportunity for them to be corrected".

The council requested any implementation of the decision to be suspended, and for it to be taken again in a "lawful manner".

"This will avoid the worst-case scenario – for all parties – of a judicial review being brought with the associated cost, time and poor optics of litigation," it added.

"The public purse is not best served in taking legal proceedings in this matter if it can be resolved by other means."

The council claimed the decision needed Les to be in agreement, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

It also alleged that the mayor breached the constitution by preventing Dadd from moving an amendment to the budget proposal.

In response, Skaith said the council's action was "beyond regrettable".

"I think the public will see it for what it is, the Tories using public money to fight against getting more investment every year for the next four years," he said.

"That record investment will now have to be paused.

"That stings so much because they sat back quietly when the last Conservative government actually did cut their roads funding two years in a row."

The Labour mayor said he had not been elected to continue "business as usual that has failed communities across North Yorkshire for decades".

As well as starting legal proceedings, North Yorkshire Council chiefs have asked the authority's transport committee to examine the budget decision.

Les said the budget decision was "prejudicial to the residents of North Yorkshire".

He said: "The basis of setting up the combined authority was that, although it had been led by the mayor, it requires a great deal of consensus to move initiatives or to deliver initiatives.

"We think this is a budgetary matter and, under the constitution, the budget has to be not only a majority opinion of the authority, but it's got to be a unanimous decision by the authority, so there are elements in the decision-making that we think are flawed."

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