Failed legal battle over housing plan for Shrewsbury parkland cost taxpayers £150,000
A legal battle over planning permission for homes to be built on a piece of parkland in Shrewsbury cost Shropshire Council almost £150,000, it has been revealed.
The dispute between the authority and a group of residents over Greenfields Recreation Ground ended with planning permission for part of the park being quashed in a landmark Supreme Court ruling in March.
Handing down the judgement, the court ordered the council to pay £105,000 towards the costs incurred by Dr Peter Day, of Greenfields Community Group, in bringing the case.
The council has now revealed that its own legal costs were an extra £44,389.30, bringing the total to £149,389.30.
A breakdown of the costs shows the council first forked out £17,700 to lawyers for the initial judicial review in the High Court.
The judge in the case said the council should have realised the land formed part of park and was protected by a trust – and should therefore never have been sold by Shrewsbury Town Council to developers. However the court’s decision was that the trust did not survive the sale and the planning permission was not revoked.
Dr Day appealed to the Court of Appeal, and council figures show this stage cost a further £9,300 in legal fees.
The appeal was dismissed again, and the group took its fight to the highest court in the land – the Supreme Court. This stage cost the council another £13,920 for legal representation.
It also had to pay a total of £3,469.30 across the three stages for lawyers’ expenses and court fees.
The Supreme Court ruled that the council should pay a ‘capped’ amount of £35,000 towards the appellant’s legal fees for each of the three stages, totalling £105,000.
Dr Day said he had been pushing for mediation with the two councils and the developer who purchased the land “as far back as 2018”, to try and avoid the need for a costly court showdown.
He said: “I personally wrote to Shropshire Council on several occasions up until the Supreme Court date itself explaining that this was their choice and that mediation was the proper democratic option, not the Supreme Court.
“Choosing to proceed to the Supreme Court on the mistaken belief that they Shropshire Council would win was a mistake not only financially but in terms of their mandate, which officers overreached.
“All parties, rather than stopping the process, doubled down on the decision and stated to the planning process that this land was ‘never part of the park’.
“This was incorrect then in 2018, in 2023 at the Supreme Court and in 1926 when the park was established.”
Dr Day also pointed out that the real cost to the taxpayer was far more than just the legal fees – including officer time dealing with the planning application, subsequent legal matters and freedom of information (FOI) requests to both councils, as well as the cost of an inquiry commissioned by the town council to investigate the circumstances of the sale.
He added that the community had put in “hundreds of hours” of work and was still £60,000 out of pocket.
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