STAUNCH have now received the legal opinion from our barrister about potential opinions available to us in relation to the appeal decision to grant planning permission in relation to Castle Manor Farm and the planning committee decision to approve the Glebe Land development.
The advice we have received is as follows:
Castle Manor Farm: we could request a statutory review of the Planning Inspector’s decision, however, we could not do this purely on the basis that we do not agree with the decision but only if we could show specific legal errors by the Inspector. The opinion of counsel is there are two small areas where we may have a case. However, even with these opportunities the chances of success would be very slim.
Our counsel believes the situation with the Glebe Land is we have a relatively strong case for a judicial review and this would be worth pursuing.
Ideally, we would have wished to pursue both these matters, however, to do so would require us to raise at least a further £50,000 – £80,000 in the short term and even more should there be further appeals by the developers.
On balance, we are not confident this could be achieved in the necessary timescale; a risk that STAUNCH cannot afford to take.
As a result, and on the balance of probability in being successful, a decision has been taken not to pursue the legal redress in relation to Castle Manor Farm. We will however continue to fund raise and go ahead with a judicial review for the Glebe Land. This will therefore allow us to focus all our available funds in pursuing this application appropriately rather than attempt to undertake two legal actions and find ourselves unable to fund them adequately.
STAUNCH are totally reliant on donations to fund any legal action and your support has been phenomenal and a testament to the strength of feeling out there. Recognising the fact that STAUNCH relies totally on donations to fund any legal action, our legal team have offered to pursue the judicial review for us on a 50% discounted fee basis. Even with this generous support, STAUNCH will still need to raise a further £20,000 in the immediate future.
These are not decisions taken lightly by STAUNCH or indeed ones that any of us would ideally want to have taken. We have unfortunately had to adopt a realistic approach as to what is achievable with available resources.
STAUNCH will continue to monitor all activity to ensure everything undertaken in the building and implementation of Castle Manor Farm, is carried out as per the necessary planning conditions imposed by the Inspector.