A woman has won a High Court dispute over the classification of footpaths after 11 years of wrangling and three separate inquiries.
Mrs Susan Erica Marriott of Chilton Down, Chilton Candover, near Alfresford, Hampshire, has fought a long running dispute against the decision of the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport & the Regions to re-classify eight country footpaths under section 54 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 as byways open to all traffic.
Now the High Court has quashed the decision made by an inspector, Mr DT Bryant, on behalf of the SSETR in March this year, confirming the Hampshire (Basingstoke and Deane Borough No 13)(Parish of Candovers) Public Path Reclassification Order 1989.
Today Sullivan J expressed “considerable regret” that it had taken nearly 11 years and three inquiries to get this far and that “the end result had been confusion over a vital matter”. He quashed the order on both grounds of lack of jurisdiction and unfairness.
“The elementary considerations of fairness meant that those deciding whether to attend should know in advance what is to be the scope of the inquiry,” he said.
He also stated that the inspector had failed in his duty to achieve this, and called for new rules to help inspectors run inquiries fairly, and added: “There is an urgent need for procedural rules for this type of inquiry, of which, I am told, there are 150 a year.”
Mrs Marriott was awarded costs, subject to a detailed assessment. The DETR was granted general leave to appeal the decision.
Marriott v Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport & the Regions Queens Bench Division: Administrative Court (Sullivan J) 10 October 2000
George Laurence QC (instructed by Wilsons, of Salisbury) appeared for the applicant; Michael Bedford (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the respondent.
PLS News 10/10/00
