I am sorry I have not updated you recently. After losing our Judicial Review we decided to apply for leave to appeal the decision.  Because of the Covid situation it has taken longer than expected to get the Court’s decision but on Thursday we heard that we have been refused permission to appeal.

We are, of course, extremely disappointed at this outcome and this is now the end of the road for our legal challenge against the planning decision.

However, our real challenge is against development of the site itself and there are many challenges that FHDC have to overcome.

For example, the many objections against “stopping up” the road: when they genuinely know the real costs of doing this they will certainly have to justify them, as well as this they need to overcome extensive environmental, drainage and ecological issues. We will be challenging the Council on all these points.

We are very grateful for all your support, donations, signing the petition and lodging your objections and we are upset that it hasn’t produced a positive result.

The Fight Continues to Save Princes Parade.

I am sure most of you will have heard we lost our Judicial Review. We are very disappointed Justice Dove dismissed our claim to declare the Council’s planning permission for the development on Princes Parade illegal.

We are very grateful for all your support, donations, signing the petition and lodging your objections and we are upset that it hasn’t produced a positive result.

The full judgment can be found on the Save Princes Parade website for you to see.

We applied for leave to appeal the decision immediately but have since been informed that we have lost our initial request for permission. The solicitor warned us Justice Dove was likely to refuse our request. He has explained his decision to refuse our application for the judicial review but there were few additional details and no clarifications.

The next stage is to apply to the Court of Appeal for permission. Our solicitors are so convinced that the judge got it wrong they have offered to waive their fees for the next stage of the proceeding.  The barrister has also offered to reduce his fees.

There are a myriad of other irregularities, inconsistencies and errors in the Council’s planning application and we feel it is worth pursuing them. We are now review the judgement in detail and consider our next steps to Save Prince’s Parade. Rest assured - The Fight Continues.

The Judicial Review was held today over an audio link between Justice Dove and both barristers. Our solicitors and I (as claimant) could listen in but obviously we were not allowed to say anything. I thought the hearing went very well, as did our solicitor, but it is now in the hands of the judge.

Justice Dove is now going to consider the case presented and will send his judgement to the barristers.  This could take a few weeks, but I will update you as soon as I have any more information.

We heard yesterday that the Judicial Review date has been set for a one-day hearing on Tuesday 24th March. Our team is now working with the solicitors to put the final touches to our papers that will be delivered to the court by 2nd March. We are pleased to say we remain confident because, as always has been the case, the council’s defence is riddled with flaws. We are, of course, totally dependent on receiving enough donations to overcome our outstanding funding shortfall – so if you can please help with further donations to get us over the line.

We really appreciate your support and will keep you updated with future developments.

Today, Tuesday 3 December, we have been granted permission to proceed to the substantive hearing of the Judicial Review after challenging the previous decision in the High Court. Our case has been determined by the judge, Mr Justice Supperstone, as being arguable on both of our two grounds. The decision demonstrates the strength of our claim that the planning permission granted by Folkestone and Hythe District Council to themselves was unlawful. We are now confident that when our grounds are argued in greater detail at the Judicial Review itself that will probably take place in March 2020, we should be able to stop this development once and for all.

The devil of this complex case is in the detail. The fact that the council failed to comply with its own flood risk policy was one of the key contributory factors to the decision.

Were FHDC permitted to proceed with this development it would be an environmental catastrophe, as well as being contrary to the decision of Full Council on 26^th June 2019 to abandon the planning application and build the Leisure Centre on Martello Lakes.

We all want a replacement for Hythe’s ailing swimming pool and it remains unbelievable that FHDC have failed to recognise that the only sensible option for the new leisure centre is to build it on Martello Lakes. We now possess evidence that the costs for building it there will be much cheaper than previously estimated.

So still a long way to go but for now we can celebrate!

Our permission hearing at the court has been confirmed to be on the 3^rd December. We will find out the time of the hearing on the day before. The case will last about one hour.

The campaign’s planning adviser has compiled a comprehensive technical report responding to Justice Lieven’s judgement refusing permission at the desk stage which we have submitted to the solicitor and barrister.  We will be talking to the barrister next week to discuss how our case will be presented at the hearing.

We feel we will be presenting a very compelling case and we remain confident of a positive outcome.

It must be remembered, however, that judges are notoriously fickle and nothing is guaranteed.

I will let you know as soon as possible what the judgement is.

We have had a small set back in obtaining permission to go ahead with the JR. The last time I updated you, the papers were submitted to the court and a judge looked at them to determine if  we could progress to the substantive hearing. Unfortunately, the judge has refused this permission.

Yesterday we submitted a request applying for a court permission hearing in front of the judge. We had anticipated having to go to a permission hearing, we had hoped it would not be necessary because the arguments are so clearly in our favour.

We will keep you updated with future developments.

Just to let you know that all the papers are now in front of the judge and we should soon hear whether we have got permission to go on to a full hearing.  We are very confident that permission will be granted so watch this space!

Full hearings are very expensive so we need to raise as much money as possible, if you haven’t done so already, please donate to our case.

Please also share our CrowdJustice web page https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/saveprincesparade/ on Facebook, Twitter etc.

I am updating you on the progress so far with our judicial review claim against Folkestone and Hythe District Council. 

Firstly, thank you to everyone who has donated to our fundraising so far, it is very much appreciated.

In a judicial review you cannot question the decision that the Council have made in granting the planning permission on Princes Parade, but you can question the legality of the Council’s processes. We have put a copy of our claim document on the Save Princes Parade website and you can view it using this link:

http://saveprincesparade.org/news/judicial-review-2/

We are challenging FHDC on two grounds:

• The Officers Report significantly misled the planning committee that the application breached both the Core Strategy Local Plan and TM8 and LR9 of the Shepway Local Plan.
• The Officers Report significantly misled the Planning Committee by failing to apply policies in the National Planning Policy Framework in relation to “areas at risk of flooding”.

Our claims document goes in front of a judge so he can assess the case. The judge will give his permission to go forward to a substantive hearing if he thinks we have grounds for a successful challenge.

Substantive hearings are very expensive so we need to raise as much money as possible so, if you haven’t done so already, please donate to our case.

Please also share our CrowdJustice web page https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/saveprincesparade/ on Facebook, Twitter etc.