Council seeking van sales ban 'not anti-ice cream'

Plans to prohibit ice cream vans from trading on a street next to Greenwich Park have prompted a local councillor to state that the local authority is not "anti-ice cream".

Greenwich Council's cabinet has recommended that King William Walk be designated as a prohibited street for itinerant ice cream trading.

It included the thoroughfare at the north-west corner of the park on a list of streets where the trade of ice cream is prohibited.

However, ice cream van operator Paul St Hilaire Sr successfully challenged the decision in court on the basis that the council's decision was not legally sound.

Bromley Magistrates' Court ordered the council to re-run the public consultation process and review whether King William Walk should be included in the list of prohibited streets.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service previously revealed through a Freedom of Information request that Greenwich Council spent £52,000 of public money on legal costs for the case.

The council carried out their court-ordered consultation process earlier this year.

At a council cabinet meeting on 9 April, it was revealed that out of the 25 organisations and residents that responded to the consultation, 16 were in favour of the prohibition and nine were against it.

Councillor Pat Slattery, a ward councillor for Greenwich Park, which includes King William Walk, supported the prohibition proposal.

She told the cabinet meeting: "I think it is important to say that the council is not anti-ice cream.

"There are ice cream vendors in a reasonable spit of where this ice cream van regularly parks up."

At the cabinet meeting councillor Jackie Smith said the only grounds on which the council can prevent itinerant ice cream trading on any of its streets "is the interest in preventing the obstruction to traffic or undue interference or inconvenience to persons using the street".

She added: "We have had lots of complaints from lots of residents of King William Walk in the past."

Interim director of legal services Azuka Onuorah told the council that if the ban was challenged again, the prohibition remains in place pending the outcome of the challenge, which entitles the council to take enforcement action.

Before the cabinet approved the decision to recommend the King William Walk prohibition to full council, the council leader Anthony Okereke said: "We are not banning ice creams in Greenwich in any way shape or form.

"We do love an ice cream, actually."

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