Priority Habitats should have Priority! Protecting an old orchard
Priority Habitats should have Priority! Protecting an old orchard
Latest: July 17, 2022
Our case fails...
I'm extremely sorry to say that I have just had a letter from the Administrative Courts. Our request for leave to apply for an oral hearing of our case has been rejected.
You may remember that our…
Read moreI live in a village in Oxfordshire that was at the heart of fruitgrowing. Each house along this historic Causeway through the middle of the village used to have a strip behind it, many of them were orchards.
The largest remaining orchard in the village is owned half-and-half by neighbours and one half is under threat from planning for houses. If this half (RHS of photo) goes, the other half (whose biodiversity will be greatly affected) is bound to end up as housing as well (LHS of photo). Many of the trees in the orchard on the right hand side were felled very recently, just before a planning application was made.
Although the land is designated as Traditional Orchard, which is a protected Priority Habitat, the developers made an appeal against refusal of planning permission and offered to 'offset' the biodiversity loss (by paying) and so the environmental loss was not considered in the balance when the Inspector weighed up his decision. In fact, Priority Habitats should not be 'offset' like this.
We are taking the appeal judgement to a statutory review, which means that a legal mistake was made by the Inspector at the Appeal (to accept 'offsetting' as a way to take the loss of the orchard out of balance he was weighing up).
To do this, we have instructed a barrister, who is kindly giving us a discount. To take the case through all stages of the legal process will be around £15,000. But if we lose the case then we will also have to pay the other side's costs. Hopefully those should be capped at £5,000.
Our chances of winning are in the balance as even if the Inspector has to reassess their decision they may still decide in favour of the developers.
But we believe that habitats and the environment need people to stand up for them.
There is no point having legal protection for them if this is ignored.
If you feel the same, then please give a little to help support this action.
Thank you.
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I'll share on FacebookAlexandra Freeman
July 17, 2022
Our case fails...
I'm extremely sorry to say that I have just had a letter from the Administrative Courts. Our request for leave to apply for an oral hearing of our case has been rejected.
You may remember that our initial case asking for judicial review of the appeal was rejected on the basis of our written arguments. This is, I believe, often the case and we had seven days to request an oral hearing. However, the email giving us notice of the rejection and the start of the seven day period never arrived with me - and the court did not notify our legal representatives. When I asked for evidence that they had emailed, they were unable to produce any - hence our request for an oral hearing, outside of the seven day period. That was back in October last year and both sides have been phoning and emailing for updates since.
Finally, a judge looked at our request and denied it. So, we don't get the chance to present our case orally after all this time of waiting. It feels like a denial of justice for us, and I am terribly sorry. If I had thought my email account might not receive their email I would have asked them to use some other method of contact (the email didn't go to junk - it just got barred, presumably because the email message contained no text, it was just an email from an unknown address with attachments and a rather odd alphanumeric subject). In fact, I think important legal correspondence like that should go by two methods be default!
Anyway, it seems like it is the end of the line for legal protection for this orchard. The facts of our case stand - the developers cannot 'offset' the biodiversity loss of this Priority Habitat, which I hope now means that the Council might be in a position to deny the final stages of the planning applications as the developers won't be able to show a means of avoiding biodiversity loss. We shall have to see.
Again, I am so very sorry.
Alexandra Freeman
June 19, 2022
Detailed planning goes in whilst we still wait for a judgement!
It's been almost year since the developers won their appeal against the council and we lodged our request for a judicial review of that. Since then we have been subject to the court backlogs, it seems, and despite me and our legal team AND the legal team for the Secretary of State enquiring, we have constantly just been told that they will update us as soon as possible.
Now, the developers have put in detailed planning permission for 2 of the 7 plots: https://data.whitehorsedc.gov.uk/java/support/Main.jsp?MODULE=ApplicationDetails&REF=P22/V1345/RM#exactline
This is open for consultation until 6th July.
The developers have also had a 'Design Code' approved and have put in for some of the other 'Reserved Matters' stipulated in their appeal judgement.
We are continuing to press for a response to our request for a judicial review.
This seems to be a case where our rights to justice, in the proper hearing of our request, are in danger of being denied due to court backlogs.
Alexandra Freeman
Nov. 25, 2021
We're still waiting to hear from the court...
We have put in our request for a legal review of the case, and are currently still waiting to hear from the court. It's been over a month.
If we get permission, our appeal will be heard orally, by a judge.
If we don't get permission, then that's the end of our legal options.
Fingers crossed!
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