A consultation on whether ice cream vans should be allowed in one of Greenwich’s busiest tourist streets will have to be rerun because of blunders by council officers.
One trader who was ignored in the process took the council to court, where a judge ordered the town hall to start again.
Ice cream vans have been banned from King William Walk, which stretches from the gates of Greenwich Park towards the Cutty Sark, for more than 20 years. The council has said that they cause disruption and block narrow pavements,
In 2023, the council announced plans to update its policy, which also applies to other streets in Greenwich and to parts of Woolwich town centre, and launched a consultation before imposing the new ban.
But Paul St Hilaire, a trader who has long been in dispute with the council over the restrictions, took the case to Bromley Magistrates Court. District Judge Sarah Turnford found that there were “procedural irregularities in the consultation process” and ordered a rerun concerning King William Walk.
The judge said that clumsy language in cabinet reports suggested that councillors could also be deciding whether trading should, in fact, be allowed in the street. She also found that a public notice included a typographical error directing residents to the wrong appendix in a report, while it was impossible to tell if materials on the website were correct as the page had been taken down.
The judge also noted that responses from St Hilaire, including addressing meetings of the cabinet and the council, were not acknowledged in the consultation.
St Hilaire’s son, also called Paul St Hilaire, told a full council meeting in December 2023 that a court order had allowed his father to trade from a pitch next to the National Maritime Museum, and that a ban would hand a monopoly to the museum, whose own van had begun trading on its own land just a few metres away.
St Hilaire senior told the Local Democracy Reporting Service a year ago that he wanted “fairness and justice” and accused the council of wanting to “stop genuine competition”.
“I’ve been doing my business for 30 years,” he said. “I’ve raised a family. I have all my children that are here working and providing services for the wider community. All I want is to be able to sell my ice cream.”
Greenwich Council said that ice cream vans were welcome to use hundreds of roads in the borough and added: ““The council wants to support street trading throughout the borough, while ensuring it is well-managed and we fulfil our commitment to create a cleaner, greener Greenwich. We welcome the fact that the district judge has confirmed that the adoption of our renewed street trading policy and designation of streets for street trading is lawful.
“We will be re-running a small part of consultation on the proposal to ban itinerant ice cream trading at King William Walk, as requested in the district judge’s decision. We welcome feedback from traders, residents and other local community members.”
The new consultation will begin later this month.
Additional reporting by Joe Coughlan, Local Democracy Reporter. Updated on January 7 to include Greenwich Council statement.
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