The Council published late yesterday their decision notice on lifting the Lendal bridge traffic restrictions. It referred to a meeting which had taken place a week earlier.

The notice that the meeting would take place was also published yesterday (which is no help for residents trying to follow the Byzantine meanderings of the Councils processes)

The Council claims that the decision was taken under “delegated powers” by the Council Leader acting alone.

The decision notice does not include any background report (which is in itself highly unusual given that the last Council meeting was prevented from discussing the issue because “all the facts weren’t available”)

The Decision has not been labelled as “key” meaning that it cannot be called in for consideration by an ”all party” committee.

However a decision on the Lendal Bridge issues was, and is, due to be made by the Cabinet on 6^th May 2014.

Key decision items have to be included in what is known as the Forward Plan and an entry was made for this policy item.

It confirms that it is a “key” decision.

The Councils Monitoring Officer needs to explain these inconsistencies, and pretty quickly.

No one doubts that officers could have switched off the ANPR cameras at least when their use was found to be unlawful.

But a decision to revoke the traffic order required an approach in line with the published Forward Programme.

It is likely that the Local Government Ombudsman would take a dim view of the Councils manoeuvres.

In the meantime the Council should agree to set up a scrutiny committee to look into the irregularties.