Abandoned cars list kept secret

During 2003/04, City of York Council removed 240 abandoned cars which were considered to be of little or no value, many of them burned-out or wrecked.

The authority says that keeping the streets as free as possible of the wrecks is part of the York Pride initiative, which aims to keep neighbourhoods clean and presentable.

It says the policy also helps reduce the fear of crime and tackle anti-social behaviour, with the vast majority of abandoned cars having no registered keeper, and often being used for criminal purposes.

Officers who carried out an analysis of where abandoned cars were removed during the year discovered that a significant number - 40 - were from just a small number of streets in the city.

"Checks have shown that these streets still represent those most at risk," said a report by Paul Thackray, head of highways and street operations, to a meeting on Wednesday of the executive member for environment and sustainability with the advisory panel.

He said the risk streets were listed in an annex to the report, but the annex had not been made available to the press or public.

The committee is being urged to exclude press and public from the meeting during discussion of the annex on the grounds that "it contains information which, if disclosed to the public, would reveal that the authority proposes to give under any enactment a notice under or by virtue of which requirements are imposed on a person or to make an order or direction under any enactment, and information relating to any action taken or to be taken in connection with the prevention, investigation or prosecution of crime."

Asked to explain what this meant, and why the list was being kept confidential, a council spokeswoman said: "Officers took the decision not to publish the names of particular streets where cars are frequently abandoned because it was felt that it would further exacerbate the problem."

Updated: 09:58 Monday, January 10, 2005