Glasgow LEZ: Firm gets green light in fight against scheme

William Paton, company director of Patons Accident Repair Centre in Townhead, is set to move forward with his bid to have phase two of the LEZ deemed unlawful.

In a decision at the Court of Session on Thursday, July 27, judge Lady Poole ruled the case can proceed after Mr Paton presented his argument that air quality standards were met amid phase one of the scheme, negating the need for phase two.

The court has not yet commented on the specific grounds of Mr Paton's petition. At this stage, it has only been decided that the petition is allowed to proceed to a full hearing of the claims.

The parties involved received a written judgement on Friday (July 28) evening.

A procedural hearing is set for September 8 and will be followed by the judicial review on October 17.

The LEZ came into force on June 1, banning thousands of vehicles from the city centre that do not meet emissions requirements.

A spokesperson from Glasgow City Council has said that the case will be "vigorously contested".

Mr Paton said: "In our mind, this is a huge win.

"We started speaking to the council and outlined our personal and commercial concerns about the low emission zone, its necessity, and whether the data should be revisited.

"It's a huge amount of people that are going to be affected. I've been affected by the low emission zone. That's why this feels like a win for us."

We revealed in May that Patons commissioned a report by the Hilson Moran Institute to study the impact of the first phase of the LEZ for buses in the city centre which came into force in 2018.

The report found that air quality aims were achieved in phase one and the second phase impacting other vehicles would not lead to any further improvement in air quality.

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Mr Paton said: "The independent expert analysis showed that phase two wasn't required.

"It showed that compliance had been achieved in 2022 with all Air Quality Scotland objectives, it showed a continuing downward trend with no further action at all from the natural renewing of older vehicles with cleaner ones without the requirement for a phase two.

"What stuck in our mind was that we were told if we got this to judicial review, we had a decent chance.

"There's evidence here to show that the public will be massively disaffected by this. Massively."

The biggest hurdle Mr Paton's campaign had to overcome was the case being time-barred and not allowed to move forward due to the statute of limitations passing, he says.

He added: "We were incredibly pessimistic about defeating time-barred because it's such a strict test.

"Thankfully, we've gotten past that hurdle and now we have a fair and open judicial review.

"We had the hearing last Thursday, and then we heard on Friday we're going to get our day in court.

"It's a huge win for us and a huge win for the people of Glasgow. It's now time to ramp up and get the hard work done.

A council spokesperson said:  “The court did not comment on the specific grounds of the petition and made no finding on air quality levels - rather the petition was allowed to proceed to a full hearing where its claims will be fully examined before any decision is made.

“As we have said previously, the case will be vigorously contested.”

Now, Mr Paton has launched a fundraiser with a target of £200,000 to cover the legal costs of his case.

He said: "Any surplus funds received will be donated to the charities within the LEZ of Glasgow that have already had to spend money on complying with this scheme they could have put to better use feeding and helping the people of Glasgow."

To find out more about the fundraiser, click here.