A Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) approved by Thanet council in July has now been rescinded following a threat of costly legal action by the Free Speech Union.
Cabinet members made the decision at a meeting last night (August 22) following recommendations by the Overview and Scrutiny Panel that the council’s proposed Alcohol and Antisocial Behaviour PSPO be re-considered. .
However, the council faced a legal challenge from the Free Speech Union which says there were issues with the wording of the PSPO and also with the consultation that was carried out in May.
The FSU said the consultation was inadequate, the decision was made without councillors accessing all the evidence, the order breached Human Rights legislation for freedom of expression and assembly, it was unlawful because it did not define the activities that are being prohibited and covered a wide area -Ramsgate, Margate, Broadstairs and Birchington- rather than targeting trouble hotspots.
Under the order offenders could face fines of up to £100, reduced to £60 if paid within two weeks.
The decision was called in to the scrutiny panel by chairman Cllr Phil Fellows due to the council receiving a letter under the pre-action protocol for judicial review from the Free Speech Union (FSU). The FSU said it would apply to judicially review the PSPO decision.
The council says that as the initial decision by Cabinet was not implemented, there is now no basis for the PSPO to be legally challenged.
There were previously two separate PSPOs, one related to Alcohol and another to Antisocial Behaviour, both of which were due to expire at the end of July 2024. The council wanted a new order encompassing both alcohol and antisocial behaviour.
The new order expanded on the previous orders and aimed to introduce restrictions to combat incidences of antisocial behaviour in the district.
This included a restriction preventing the use of foul language which caused alarm or distress to other people, there have been provisions in force for this in Thanet since a PSPO came into force in 2018. This was not an issue raised with the council by the Free Speech Union at that time.
However, Cabinet agreed that the drafting of this order could be improved to ensure that it is fully enforceable.
During the meeting council leader Rick Everitt said: “This report sets out the history of this decision including the legal history and Councillors will see that the Free Speech Union have now written to the Council under the pre-action protocol for Judicial Review. They have made it clear that they intend to challenge the PSPO if it is implemented in its current form. This is a clear risk to the Council, certainly in relation to finances.
“I do want to make clear that the Free Speech Union, while entitled to its opinion, is a private company established in December 2019 and that it is making a legal argument, for its own ideological reasons. However it framed its position at OSP, it is not to be regarded as providing the council with impartial legal advice and any decision we make tonight does not mean that the council accepts its arguments.
“Councillors at OSP described feeling bullied by the Free Speech Union, which is not based in Thanet and cannot just be assumed to be acting in the best interests of Thanet residents. This council will not be bullied, but we recognise that in responding to this challenge we need to ensure that our position is as robust as it can be, in order to protect public funds.”
Cllr Everitt highlighted that the ‘swearing’ provision had been a part of the original antisocial behaviour PSPO and was not new, despite a swell of media coverage about it.
He added: “Similar rules also apply in other local authorities and they have not been raised as an issue by the Free Speech Union.
“The PSPO is a very valuable tool in the armoury of measures that support the Community Safety Team to manage challenging anti-social behaviour across the council. If Cabinet take the decision to rescind this decision the council will be without this tool in its armoury.”
The PSPO will now be redrafted, a public consultation will follow which clearly sets out the PSPO’s aims and provides clear evidence for the proposed restrictions in the suggested locations.
So, the democratic processes of a Local Authority are in thrall to a private company.
Not good.
Neither is the Tories drafting documents that could easily crumble under any legal challenge & Labour carrying on using it-rather than scrapping it like Labour sensibly did with the pathetic, headline grabbing Rwanda scheme, then backing down when somebody finally does challenge it, because they know it could cost them a fortune when challenged in court & then putting the blame anywhere but themselves.
It will be interesting to see if any people who paid fines, or were convicted from 2018-2024, will now be putting in claims for reimbursement, damages etc. That is why these things should be done correctly in the first place & elected politicians should not behave like they are some supreme beings whose word is law & can never be wrong or challenged.
How many of us even knew that we could potentially fined or locked up at any point for the last six year just for airing an expletive in public & then some permanently offended type, or jobsworth civil servant who heard it reported us to the police? Not many I think & certainly not what these things are supposed to be put in place for. That is why people should be thanking this group, whatever their feelings on them-not joining in the council leaders denigration of them.
Violation of international Human Rights laws is NOT what councillors were elected to do.
Shame to see the Free Speech Union given any legitimacy. An ideologically motivated group masquerading as valiant activism set up by mental right-winger and general sleazebag Toby Young, who previously decided to attack art made by local girls displayed at the Turner in the Spectator
Whatever or whoever it is run by & I am no fan of Young, does this attitude not rather prove their point? That even if the TDC’s wording has been flawed for six years, it shouldn’t be addressed & just allowed to carry on without any challenge? That is a dictatorship & not a democracy.
Who exactly is allowed to bring up concerns? Before-even though TDC themselves referred a councilor to the police for investigation, the leader then declared him innocent in print while that investigation was ongoing & attacked Ian Driver for reporting it & now the same is happening with this lot.
Driver was too much of a nuisance, troublemaker & a far left to raise his concerns & now the FSU are too much of a nuisance, looking to cause trouble & far right to raise concerns. Who exactly is allowed to raise concerns then? Isn’t it the right of every citizen to do so? Why does the leader get so angry at people doing so? Does not the fact that TDC referred one matter on to outside agencies after being unable to reach a decision themselves & now have backed down right away & reworded it to what it should have been in 2018, make it clear that both these complaints were/are totally legitimate?
Man from Broadstairs. You seem to have a problem with people airing an opinion different from your own. I wonder why that is?
Free speech is part of our human rights..are you saying we be polite when someone rapes me ..another BS supporter of the gutter which is rife at TDC it’s in your water
So you don’t like opinions that differ to yours? That’s why we need the likes of FSU
TDC upset their our word is the law attitude has finally been challenged & have backed down immediately-which tells you a lot about the dodgy ground they were on, but of course it is all the fault of the Free Speech Union & not theirs-yeah sure.
It does look like more about than blase arrogance, power & a cash grab, rather than actually keeping the public safe. Not that this is all Labour of course-they only took over last year & this had been going on for five years under the Tories. Again it does make you wonder about the TDC legal department-assuming they helped draft this in 2018.
Even if TDC haven’t abused it in any way to fine people it wasn’t meant to cover, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be in future, the current direction the government appear to be heading in & we know how cash-strapped councils are & that is among other things what this group are wanting clarity on.
Despite voting for this Labour council last year, it is concerning that their leader first with the Steve Albion affair-which was referred by them to the police & now this has seen him go to the media angrily bemoaning both decisions-the first while a police investigation was happening & more importantly that any challenge should dare be made against him/them at all & to dismiss those doing so-Ian Driver & the FSU are both painted negatively to discredit genuine issues raised by them. Is this council beyond being held to account by anybody in their eyes & then those that do are punished/denounced? That is a dictatorship, not an elected body.
While I have supported the governments dealing with the rioters, their violent counterparts from the counter demonstrations & those stirring up such things online, it does now feel with the vague announcement by the Home Secretary that misogyny is going to be severely punished by deeming it as extremism-could that include an overheard joke about burning toast for instance & the police boss threatening to extradite people from overseas for comments-aimed at Tate & Musk of course-with no comments from Starmer or the CPS regarding how stupid this is, that their egos also seem to be getting out of control & we could be headed to a 1984 police state. It does rather scream of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Good news. Trying to protect freedom of speech is quite the opposite of bullying. It is the most important of human rights if you want to live in a civilised world. You can’t protect any other rights without this. This sounded like a carelessly drafted order with dangers of overreach, with no attempt at public consultation. Not a good look for TDC.
I find it hilarious that that claim is being made. After all TDC has had how many allegations of bullying by staff members under the prior regime, over many years & some golden handshakes were given to make the bad publicity go away.
Afraid this policy of attacking anybody putting in legitimate complaints & victim-hood is very transparent, as made clear by the backing down at the first challenge of this six year long policy, where nay of us without even knowing could have been threatened with being fined or locked up for uttering a loud expletive in public-though clearly it would have fallen apart as soon as somebody brave enough challenged it legally. Ian Driver’s complaint was deemed in print by the TDC leader to be spurious-despite it having been forwarded by TDC itself to the police & an outside investigator for further investigation.
Rick, just admit your Cabinet got it wrong. It reached well beyond its scope and have been rightfully challenged.
Aiming your fire at others and blaming them doesn’t help. Reflect on the incorrect advice you were given by officers and the poor decision your Cabinet made.
Meanwhile, the drug dealers, street users, drinkers, aggressive anti social behaviours just continue. Pointless ideological debates, badly drafted policy, endless political footballs.
And our towns get worse. I’m pretty certain Toby Young doesn’t have to suffer the same on his doorstep.
Not sure I follow. Surely these powers that have been in place since 2018 should be tackling the anti-social yobbos, the drinkers causing trouble etc? So either TDC haven’t been enforcing it very well-regardless of the legality of it, or maybe because of the legality of it meaning cases crumble as soon people don’t plead guilty & actually fight it, or it doesn’t work very well-surely that is on TDC & other areas doing the same & not Toby Young?
Haven’t you seen all the headlines about the drug people getting arrested & convicted, both locally & nationally? Loads of them-especially when it comes close to election time for the Chief Constables & Crime Commissioners, or near to a general election when the HoME Secretary suddenly goes on the early morning raids with the police for the cameras.
There were only a couple more convicted here a week back-as usual the bottom feeding growers taking all the risk for little reward-homeless people with addictions being exploited by drug bosses/gangs that the cops swoop on for mass easy collars, while not bothering to go any higher up the food chain to catch the real criminals-replicated all over the country. Again, not sure how that is the fault of anybody else but the police & the government.
I’m not sure anyone is saying it’s anyone’s fault per se. But now we have no PSCO at all, due to the ideological meddling of Toby Young and his lofty privileged position entirely out of touch with the real lives of those living and working in our towns and watching drugs being taken openly, our parks being dedicated in, our streets being full of fights and dealers often beating each other up. All this review seeks to do is join up two previously disconnected enforcement provisions.
Now we have neither. Despite the fact nobody has been fined for swearing since it came in. And plenty of other authorities haven’t been threatened with a JR.
Meanwhile, the residents watch their towns get worse. And those who can behave and drug deal, do so with impunity.
The council will redraft it & implement it-one would hope pretty rapidly with the improvements. Besides which even if it doesn’t get done for six months or a year, the police are there to deal with such people-there doesn’t have to be anarchy just because this thing isn’t in place, they managed perfectly well prior to 2018.
How do we know who has been fined or taken to court since 2018 & on what grounds? How many cases have been challenged & quietly dropped, as happens a lot with those accused of littering who fight it-remember the fiasco of the corrupt/hopeless outside company TDC employed that were abusing their powers all over the country, making up false accusations & finally got binned themselves, when somebody filmed them littering by Dreamland?
This opens up the potential for anybody who paid a fine etc the last six years now taking up a legal remedy. I would imagine now TDC have crumbled in the face of a challenge you will see a lot more of them & councils dropping them/rewording them, to avoid the same legal issues.
So again, if these things haven’t improved anything for the last six years, then why are they such a big deal?
All this has done is exposed how ripe for abuse these things can be by officials-regardless of whether that has actually happened or not yet & seeing as how these were signed into law a decade back-yet everybody complains how things have become worse during that time shows they don’t really solve any problems long-term, just move them elsewhere, allow authorities to potentially abuse them at their discretion against anybody/anything they want, can fall apart in court when challenged & so are really as pointless as the Police & Crime Commissioner roles are-both not fit for purpose, expensive wastes of money from the Tories, that Labour should be scrapping.
👍🏻
The PSPO that was in for the past 6 years was hardly ever used with enforcement behind it. It’s all an act on paper to bully those on the streets with good behaviour. Those that continued to carry on making life unbearable for many with their antisocial nuisance behaviour got to realise nothing would happen if they carried on, so they did. Like all threats of enforcement by TDC with regulations on behaviour on our streets, whether that is parking, dropping litter, flytipping or urinating/defecating whilst shouting and swearing, it is all a waste of effort and paper without any officers on the street that will do the enforcing. TDC themselves admit they don’t have enough. This PSPO was a waste of paper. Besides, the police generally have enough powers to arrest as it is if they are inclined to use them. The days of Zero Tolerance are long gone. Now the plods on the street are told by their commanding officers that they are not allowed to upset anyone who takes offence at what they might say or do.
Defecated
You haven’t, have you?
Well, dogs defecate in our parks & on our streets all the time with apparently little punishment for their scummy owners, who walk away without using a bag to pick it up & dispose of it. Maybe the neanderthals defecate on their own sink estates rather than using their toilets. Wouldn’t surprise me with the knuckle-draggers you see, hear & smell walking around.
How much time and money has been wasted on this nonsense? Meanwhile, weeds 3 foot high are growing out the gutters on Westgate seafront.
Yep & the rubbish from the summer revellers being dumped, the never ending piles of dog mess everywhere-whatever happened to the much hyped by TDC Fido machines that were going solve all that I wonder & if you are over 5 foot 8 or so constantly ducking to avoid the overgrown tree branches-strange that TDC can send people out to mow the grass in the parks pretty much daily, yet can only manage once a year or so to deal with them in the same parks.
There certainly aren’t “piles of dog mess everywhere”. Why do people make such exaggerated claims?
Strange, I see them all the time.
Especially in Ramsgate.
Most dog faeces are cleared up by their owners.
I.e .the dogs’ owners, obviously.
You’ve not walked Victoria Road recently? There’s frequent disgusting elephant size piles of the stuff or slicks of caramel mousse around Arklow Square in particular. It only takes one selfish, large dog, owner to turn the pavement into an open sewer.
I suspect this PSOP went under the radar because no one could be bothered about Thanet. TDC is it’s own worst enemy by casting the terms of the PSOP so wide, that anyone having a barney with a friend or relative would be caught in its net.
If TDC thinks it’s lawful capture someone and see if a court of law accepts it as being valid.
Public order overreachs free speech every time, but it has to be proportionate.That is what the Human rights act is about.Defending the citizen’s right to go about their business without interference from unreasonable authority.
You want to stop drug dealing and anti social behaviour, then put more police in the streets. Forget all the CCTV and pointless ordinances and do some crime prevention.
Yes, the FSU and Ian Driver are a pain, but they do serve a purpose in stopping slap dash, and casual autocracy. I would be saying this if the tires were still in power, so Rick Everitt, and the others should stop moaning about this, instead they need to knuckle down and reword the PSPO, so it allows the police to deal with the scrotes or feral ones, as many here so charmingly call them.
Or they could simply have told Toby Youngs ideological gang that they intended to redraft this BUT because they don’t want to leave our isle unenforced at all, the existing one will stay in situ until a new, better worded one, is agreed.
I’m pretty sure a JR would be utterly facile and pointless on such a basis and I’d imagine, destined to fail.
There ARE piles of dog poop in Ramsgate all over. And plenty of human poop too, in the parks, along the prom, on the beach. There are people openly taking and selling drugs. Behaving aggressively in our town centres so we’re somewhere the locals despair of and tourists wonder why they came.
No there are not “piles of dog poop in Ramsgate all over”. I live in Ramsgate and walk into the town centre most days. As I said above, most owners clean up their dog’s faeces.
I have never seen human faeces in Ramsgate. Nobody I know has ever mentioned seeing it, and I’m pretty sure that if they had, they would have.
As for tourists, all the visitors to Ramsgate I’ve spoken to have been very enthusiastic about Ramsgate and tell me it’s a beautiful town and that they’ll be visiting it again.
‘…it’s own ideological reasons…’
Listen to yourself, Councillor Rick Everitt.
That’ll be the ‘ideology’ that objects to the drafting of laws which could be abused by those in authority when laws exist already to tackle the problems in question…
Councillor Rick Everitt might like to ponder the possibility that most residents in Thanet don’t see crime as a primary concern of the local council and, if anything, are worried when local councillors start introducing their version of law enforcement.
What people do see is the decades of decline in Thanet; why don’t councillors examine how they’ve allowed major assets like the Winter Gardens to rot, and will the Theatre Royal ever reopen?
All we want from the likes of Rick is that the district is maintained, roads are clean, people have decent homes, and public assets & services are not allowed to crumble.
It’s not much to ask, just do your job or resign.