Latest News: 16/10/09: Our legal challenge lodged in High Court

Thanks to all the kind donations, we had sufficient funds to lodge our challenge against the Secretary of State’s decision to overturn the Inspector’s decision to refuse planning permission for the Pyestock mega depot.

Our challenge is based on the Secretary of State not having taken all material issues into account in deciding to allow development despite acknowledging a breach of local planning policy.

Inspector Christina Downs having sat through all the evidence and visited the site on a number of occasions drew the conclusion that the environmental damage caused by the development outweighed the benefits of development including the provision of jobs.

Regrettably the Inspector was not persuaded by the evidence of increased congestion that would be created around the Southwood area and dismissed it by suggesting that traffic congestion was a feature of life in the South East of England that one had to live with. Equally she was compromised by the fact that neither Hampshire County Highways nor the Highways Agency raised any objection to an additional 1000 HGVs and 2,400 cars a day on our local roads. The Highways Agency in particular did not think it appropriate to inform the inquiry that ramp metering (traffic light control of traffic accessing the motorway to ease congestion) was to be installed within days of the close of the inquiry.

SPLAT is of course disappointed that Hart District Council did not challenge the decision. The Council invested significant sums of local tax payers money to defend the appeal and at a stroke the Secretary of State by reversing the Inspector’s decision wasted that public money and rode rough shod over local democracy. 

Unfortunately, as with much central government intervention, things only happen through voluntary service and charitable donations. Many, many local residents have shown their continuing concern over the impacts of this inappropriate development by donating money to allow us to mount this legal challenge and to write letters to the Department of Communities and Local Government to find out who actually made this decision and reversed the Inspector’s decision. We remain very concerned that it should take a government department over three weeks to admit who actually approved the decision. It is taking even longer for the department to reveal documentation under a Freedom of Information request.

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