Plans to prohibit ice cream vans from trading on a street next to Greenwich Park are one step closer to fruition in the latest chapter of a drawn-out saga that has already cost the taxpayer thousands.
Last week, Greenwich Council’s cabinet recommended that King William Walk be designated as a prohibited street for itinerant ice cream trading, with a final decision to be made at an upcoming full council meeting.
The South London authority included the thoroughfare at the north west corner of Greenwich Park on a list of streets it wanted to prohibit the trade of ice cream on in a policy approved at a full council meeting in late 2023, but long-time ice cream van operator Paul St Hilaire Sr challenged the decision in court on the basis that the council’s decision was not legally sound.
Bromley Magistrates’ Court sided with Mr St Hilaire Sr and 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 LDRS previously revealed through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request that Greenwich Council spent £52,000 of public money in legal costs for the case.
Greenwich Council carried out their court-ordered consultation process earlier this year, and at a cabinet meeting on April 9, 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.
At the cabinet meeting, Cllr Jackie Smith said: “The only grounds on which the council can prevent the 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. We have had lots of complaints from lots of residents of King William Walk in the past.”
Cllr Smith acknowledged that if Greenwich Council approved the prohibition decision, this would likely be challenged in court and so she stated that the council would need to “robustly defend” its decision. She added: “We are also mindful of the fact that even if the decision is made, there will still be ice cream traders that flout it and it will need to be robustly enforced.”
Cllr Rachel Taggart-Ryan asked council officers how enforcement might take place if the council was expecting a legal challenge to their prohibition decision and if enforcement could be escalated beyond fines, to which interim director of legal services Azuka Onuorah said: “If it was challenged then the prohibition remains in place pending the outcome of the challenge which entitles the council to take enforcement action, but it’s probably not appropriate at this stage to discuss what that enforcement action would look like and how it could be escalated.”
Cllr Pat Slattery, a ward councillor for Greenwich Park in which lies King William Walk, supported the prohibition proposal. She said: “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.
“It does get in the way, there are huge queues, it is very noisy and local residents have been very upset about it. They will be pleased to see this, but you’re quite right that it’s enforcement that is going to be the challenge.”
Before the cabinet approved the decision to recommend the King William Walk prohibition to full council, 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.”
