Protesters seeking to block a £7m development at Fulham FCs Craven Cottage ground have gone to the House of Lords to challenge the grant of planning consent for the scheme.
The football club says that the planned 15,000-capacity, all-seater stadium and 142 riverside apartments are crucial for its longterm future.
But the protesters, led by local resident Lady Dido Berkley, claim that neither the former Environment Secretary John Gummer, nor the inspector he appointed to hold a public inquiry, considered the full impact that the scheme would have on the Thames river frontage, which is part of a nature conservation area.
The objectors also argue that a full environmental statement should have been called for before the impact of the development was assessed.
In February 1998 the Court of Appeal rejected a challenge to an earlier High Court decision backing the scheme. On that occasion, the appeal court found that there were “blemishes” in the planning procedure for the development and that Mr Gummer had failed to consider the need for an environmental statement, as he was required to do under European law.
They nevertheless ruled that the scheme should go ahead, holding that there had been a thorough inquiry and that an environmental statement would not have affected the outcome of the inquiry. Now the protesters are hoping to overturn that decision.
PLS News 5/6/00
