We are saddened to report that the Judge has ruled against our case and the Judicial Review was unsuccessful. 

Yesterday afternoon the Judge made his ruling and went against both grounds that we had brought to the court with the aim of overturning the planning permission.

Next week we will consider the judgement with our legal team and whether there are grounds for appeal.

Thank you for all of the support received over the five years of campaigning. Whilst this is the decision that we did not want, we know that we could not have done more to fight to save the school buildings.

There are still many questions that need answering as to why this was allowed in the first instance and in time we will ensure that those behind these decisions are held to account. This destruction of our history and culture against the community's wishes cannot continue.

Thank you again,

SAVE Cowbridge Old Girls School

The Rolled-up Hearing has been scheduled for Wednesday 27th September

The hearing will be held in the Adminstrive Court on Park Street in Cardiff and will be a public hearing. All our supporters are encouraged to attend if they are able to. As soon as we have further details of the time we will circulate them here.

As a result we will be cancelling the fundraising evening at Fonmon Castle the evening before so we can focus on the hearing and ensuring we reach our fundraising target for this stage.

As always, many thanks for the support.

SAVE Cowbridge Old Girls' School Society

The Judge dismissed Hafod’s arguments that the case was ‘frivolous’ and overturned his earlier decision to grant them substantial costs in the event that we lost the Judicial Review. We now await the date of the rolled-up hearing BUT the hard work starts now in ensuring that we raise sufficient funds to cover this.

To see this through we need to raise a final £25,000. So now we have to take a deep breath and go for it… 

We need 1,000 people to donate £25 so please help spread the word and share with all those interested in saving our heritage. We are also looking for volunteers to help with the fundraising effort so please get in touch if you want to join the team on [email protected] or give us a call on 07570 839272. 

Thank you to all that have supported us to this point - one final push!

SAVE Cowbridge Old Girls Society

In our last update we let you know that we'd had the Judge's initial decision and that this was based on them only having half of the evidence in front of them due to a clerical error. As well as granting a rolled up hearing they also granted an increase in the costs payable to Hafod in the event that we lost the case - this meant the liability in the event that the campaign group lost the Judicial Review would be £20,000 rather than the £5,000 that should apply in these cases (an agreement called the Aarhaus Convention).

Tomorrow our legal team will put the case forward for quashing the decision to allow the rise and revert back to the Aarhus Convention cap of £5,000. If we are successful then we work towards a Judicial Review hearing that is likely to take place in September and we will need all the help we can to raise the funds required for the next step. Regretably, if we lose tomorrow we will need to withdraw as the amount that we would need to fundraise would double in order to cover costs in the event we lost in Court. 

So alot rides on tomorrow... we will update you as soon as we have been debriefed by our legal team. Once again, thank you to everyone who has supported us to this point. We hope tomorrow we are successful and can move ahead to the Judicial Review hearing in the autumn. 

We still await the initial decision as to whether we can proceed to a full hearing. 

We were told it was 'a waiting game' and the wait continues... As soon as we hear we will let all our supporters know. 

In the meantime we will use this time to continue to fundraise towards the legal costs so that we have the confidence to move forward with the case if we are granted permission. 

Thank you for all the support so far.

After serving papers a few weeks ago, today we have filed our response to both the Council and Hafod's defences of the case. We can now expect an initial judgement in the next two weeks. 

Meanwhile we need to keep fundraising to reach our target of £10,000 by the end of the month to give us the confidence that we will be able to meet ongoing legal costs for a substantive hearing. Thank you for the support so far and please keep spreading the word so that we can continue the fight!

In the meantime our legal team will continue working on the case and so any help continuing to spread the word will be much appreciated. Our target for the next phase is £10,000 and we will be back soon with details of fundraising activites. 

THANK YOU!