Legal Advice Sought By Town Council After Development Proposal In Crowborough

A town council is to seek legal advice in connection with a controversial planning decision by Wealden District Council.

At an extraordinary meeting on Tuesday (August 11), Crowborough Town Council agreed to pay up to £10,000 for legal advice connected to a 119-home development in Eridge Road, which was granted planning permission following a controversial second hearing last month.

The scheme had previously been refused at a hearing in March, but was brought back for a second run after concerns were raised about Wealden District Council’s decision-making process and subsequent legal advice.

Arguing in favour of releasing the funds, town mayor Greg Rose (Independent) said the development would have a significant impact on the protections for the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and described the process around Wealden’s decision as being “woefully inadequate and bizarrely secretive”.

He said:

“I personally feel, as a Crowborough town councillor, that we have a duty to residents to explore our options here and see how we can protect that land.

“It may be that we don’t have a hope in hell and we don’t have the money to do it or the full council decides it’s not a route they want to take; but I think we must explore the options in that sense.”

The same meeting saw councillors agree to formally write to Wealden District Council for a full explanation of its decision-making process and, separately, to ask the secretary of state to call-in the application.

Wealden District Council has yet to reveal what the full reasons for the March decision not being enacted were, although correspondence from developer Fairfax Acquisitions Ltd shows it had raised concerns over ‘potential procedural errors’ following the meeting.

While councillors were broadly in favour of asking Wealden for a full explanation of the circumstances, some were more wary of pursuing a legal route.

They included Cllr Martyn Garrett (Independent), who said:

“I want to start off by saying how unacceptable I found one council taking legal action against another council was. 

“At the end of the day, whoever wins, the only loser is the council tax payer. They are the people who pay for both authorities. 

“There are a lot of people out there who have lost a lot of money this year because of Covid-19. 

“There are a lot of people who have suddenly found themselves unemployed, so we need to be certain if we are going to go down any sort of legal opinion or legal action.”

Similar views were shared by Conservative councillor Richard Jury, chairman of the town council’s planning and development committee. He said:

“[What] if the legal advice comes back to say you have a possibly winnable case [and] to win it you have to go to judicial review, which as far as I can see is the only realistic method of taking this forward.  

“I do not believe that is a sensible use of public money; for one council to judicially review another. 

“I am not happy with this planning decision, it does seem to go against policy, but I don’t see a realistic way forward.”  

Despite these concerns the council voted eight to two (with one abstaining) to release up to £10,000 for legal advice.

The council also resolved to write to Robert Jenrick, the secretary of state for planning, and ask him to call-in the application for a second opinion. 

Cllr Rose, who proposed the measure, said this could prove to be an effective measure due to concerns being raised by the High Weald AONB Joint Advisory Committee and the protections for such areas in the government’s proposed planning reforms. 

He said:

“For those of you who have looked through the detailed application, the secretary of state did on March 10 refuse to call in the application. 

“But I personally feel that we are now in a different place, [with] the process being slightly complicated and the letter from the High Weald AONB. It ties in with what appears to be government policy, or emerging government policy, on protecting the AONB. 

“If the AONB is built on in Crowborough it potentially opens up the doors for the other AONBs in the country to be chipped away at.”

By Huw Oxburgh, Local Democracy Reporter.