A government lawyer today asked London’s Court of Appeal to overturn a ruling that gave a travelling family another chance to continue to live on waterlogged land in-between a sewage works and an abattoir outside Bedford.
Traveller Thomas Allen has been living on the site with his family since 2008. In August last year the High Court quashed a decision made by former Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles refusing Allen planning permission. This ruling meant that the planning permission application had to be reconsidered.
Pickles decision went against that of his planning inspector, who concluded that, despite the smell from the sewage works and abattoir, noise from the nearby major road, the partially submerged nature of the site, and the presence of a toxic weed known as New Zealand Pygmyweed, planning permission should be granted for two more years.
In today’s hearing government lawyer Stephen Whale said that the High Court judge erred when he quashed the Secretary of State’s refusal. He said the judge had not full take into account the Secretary of State’s reasons.
“The Secretary of State made a decision that was different from his inspector’s,” Whale said. “He was entitled to do this”.
However, Alan Masters, Thomas Allen’s barrister, said that the Secretary of State’s decision was not only “unfair”, it was also “illogical and unreasonable”.
The judges said they would give a written judgment at a later date.
Court of Appeal (Jackson LJ, Simon LJ, Lindblom LJ) 9 June 2016
