Thank you for your support in enabling us to pursue the important question of who should make planning decisions - can it be right that a Minister in the MHCLG can make a decision on an application made by MHCLG?

Sadly, we were not given leave to appeal, which is very disappointing. We are hoping with the wonderful support of our team of lawyers led our indomitable solicitor Richard Buxton to take this further and we are reviewing options for this.  The time has therefore come to close this appeal, but we do not want to lose you!  

We are also thinking of other ways to get across what a disastrous precedent this project will provide should it proceed. If you would like to become a member of the London Gardens Trust we would be delighted to welcome you.  Members receive 10 e-newsletters a year about all things to do with London's Parks and Gardens including updates on this campaign - please visit: https://londongardenstrust.org/support/ to find out more about our work and other ways to help us too.  We will also provide updates through our social media.

On the central issue of the planning application for the Holocaust Memorial we are unlikely to have a decision before the end of April, and probably some months or weeks later than that. In the meantime, you might be interested in a fund-raising concert to be given by one of the Save Victoria Tower Gardens supporters, the cellist Raphael Wallfisch - details of how to listen and contribute are on their website: https://www.savevictoriatowergardens.co.uk/. 

The Inquiry is now over – it was a marathon! The evidence presented to the Planning Inspector from all the objectors was impressive. Under normal circumstances the case for refusing this project would be extremely strong. However, if the present planning procedures are simply allowed to take their course, the decision is just as likely to be based on political considerations outside the norms of planning legislation.

At the beginning of October, with your help, we went to the High Court to stop the decision being made by a Junior Minister appointed by his Secretary of State.  The High Court decided that there were problems with the internal Handling Arrangements. The Government only published their latest version for public scrutiny on 11^th November, one day before the end of the Inquiry. But this did not go as far as we would have liked because we wanted to stop the Junior Minister being the arbitrator on this, his own Government’s project.  LGT has therefore appealed the decision of the High Court.

At present the decision-maker remains the Junior Housing Minister Mr Pincher.  To avoid perceived conflicts of interest, LGT believes a new decision-maker must be appointed who is completely separated from the Applicant, without political commitments made to building the project in this location, and free from all Government influence. Needless to say, this new legal action will cost money. If you feel the same way as us, and you are in a position to spare some money, please support us and do spread the word about our campaign too.

This is an action that goes far beyond this particular case, because it could affect planning decisions made by Local Authorities and some other public sector entities for their own projects as well as Central Government ministries. 

We have now applied for permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal and await its decision. 

 We believe there are several errors in the High Court judgment.  The legal errors go to our central point that it is wrong that a member of the Government will make a planning decision (building a new Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in Victoria Tower Gardens) on a matter that the whole Government is already committed to deliver. They made this promise without any reference to securing planning permission. How can the Government be seen as impartial when judging their own case and weighing up the planning benefits?

The High Court did decide that some alterations are needed to ensure that its arrangements for handling the planning application fully comply with the Regulations that we had drawn attention to.

But this did not go far enough, because it leaves someone applying for planning permission (in this case the Secretary of State) able to delegate to a close colleague (in this instance his Junior Minister) the decision-making role, only provided that the process is published in advance and that it is clear that there will be separate administrative support. This does not provide sufficient reassurance of objectivity and impartiality. So we seek review by the Court of Appeal. 

To do that, we now need more funds – so, if you are as concerned as we are about the potential trampling of planning laws and rules by the Government, please help us via Crowd Justice: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/victoria-tower-gardens/

The Planning Inquiry has now been in session for three weeks and we think, or rather hope, that our lawyers have landed some telling blows. The decision of the Inquiry will, we believe, not be finalised until after the legal process in the Court of Appeal has been resolved, so we do need your help to ensure that the decision will be made in a fair legal framework – rather different from the one set up by Government at present. You can watch current and past sessions of the Inquiry at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRMJW7Oha3Q&feature=youtu.be

Dear Supporters

The Judgment has arrived.  The Government’s handling arrangements have been found to be inadequate because they failed to be published and did not provide us with the legal certainty we should expect.  The London Gardens Trust feels vindicated having taken this to the Courts with great trepidation and we could not have done it without your backing.  You can read the judgement for yourself in full here: file:///Users/lucypeck/Downloads/London%20Historic%20Parks%20v%20SSHCLG%20Final%20Judgment%2002%2010%202020.pdf

Unfortunately, this Judgment does not rule out the Minister of Housing taking the final decision.  The Secretary of State is the applicant for this case and he has appointed the Minister for Housing to make the final decision. We continue to contest that in appointing his Minister for Housing, the Secretary of State has failed to provide a wholly impartial arbiter for this case.  Our view is further reinforced by the many public statements made by the Secretary of State, the Prime Minister and others in strong support of this project to build on an historic park which overlooks the manifest injustice that the applicant is in effect able to select its own judge. 

We remain committed to seeing this through, for the sake of all parks and gardens that could find themselves threatened with inappropriate development through what we consider unfair decision-making processes.  We hope you will continue to support us.  The Trust is now considering options to lodge an appeal to be heard in the Appeals Court with our legal counsel coordinated by Richard Buxton solicitors.

We’ll send you further updates soon.  Meanwhile be sure to watch the Planning Inquiry (https://youtu.be/bRMJW7Oha3Q) or even register to speak here: [email protected]

We have spent the last few days reflecting on an intense court case, which lasted two full days. Due to Covid 19, the hearing took place virtually, with the judge sitting in his living room, wearing robes but no wig. The barristers were either at home or in their chambers. They all worked extremely hard and our barristers had the uphill task of presenting the case over 5 hours on the first day – referring to great tomes of preparatory documentation.

The Judge took great interest and care in the case, asking many questions. What we want is for the decision on the planning permission for the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre to be made by an impartial decision-maker and NOT a member of the Government, and this is what we hope this JR will lead to.  However, the decision on our case will have wide ramifications, and will affect many planning applications made by local authorities to themselves.  The Judge was at great pains to acknowledge the public interest in the case and to make no comment about the merits of the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in Victoria Tower Gardens – that is for another, as yet unknown, entity to decide.

One success, during the course of the hearing, is that the Government was forced to concede that we had not been tardy in our application for a Judicial Review. They therefore withdrew their contention that we had been timed-out – a typical example of their bullying tactics that did not stand the test of reason.

We are keeping our campaign open because the fight is not yet over - we still have the public Inquiry to fund, and even though our lawyers are giving us massively discounted rates, we still have to pay them. If we win the JR then it is possible that the Government will appeal - we would hate to give up at that stage. And finally, another reason is that it enables us to let our supporters know what the judgement is - we are expecting it to be made several weeks from now, probably while the Inquiry is under way.

Only three days to go...

We are all excited and nervous about our virtual High Court ‘appearance’ on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. The London Gardens Trust will be going to court to fight for a fair and transparent system. We are ‘fighting’ a seemingly small point but, if/when we win, the outcome will have wide ramifications on government powers.

Needless to say, the Government’s expenses are being paid for by all of us through the public purse, but the Trust's aren’t.

Instead, our friends, neighbours and fellow park lovers are all having to dig deep into their bank accounts to ensure that the law is upheld for all of us.

If you can help by passing this around to any of your friends, family or colleagues we would be most grateful.

Our Judicial Review is due to start on September 9^th and we are still very far from having all the funds we need for our skilled legal representation. Please pass this email on to all your friends, especially those who are concerned about the loss of green space in our cities. Our case focusses on the lack of separation of powers between the Applicant (Mr Jenrick) and the ultimate decision-maker (Mr Jenrick’s junior minister, Mr Pincher).

However, we thought you would be interested in other matters associated with our current concerns over this whole proposal.  Planning policies, set by the Government, are already clear on the destruction of historic landscapes - it shouldn’t happen - and new legislation should cement this. But, following the publication of the new Planning White Paper, we are even more surprised that the government, and Robert Jenrick as the Secretary of State, is still going ahead with the destruction of this small, central London public park.

The new proposals suggest three catagories of land: ‘growth’, ‘renewal’ and ‘protected’. ‘Protected’ is supposed to mean what it says on the tin - that the land and buildings are protected. Conservation Areas and other similar assets will automatically fall inside the ‘protected’ zones in the new Local Plans that will be made by Councils. It is abundantly clear that, were the legislation enacted now, Victoria Tower Gardens would be in a ‘protected area’, not least because it is the setting for the Houses of Parliament, a World Heritage Site.

The new white paper also has a section on how in the future we are going to be ‘Building Better, Building Beautiful’. Can the proposed building, praised for its future ‘disrupting the pleasure of being in a park’ by its architect, really meet the standard of beauty suggested? If Mr Jenrick wants to encourage Building Beautiful then surely this is the wrong approach.

As well as the Judicial Review we are also preparing for the Planning Inquiry, due to start on October 6^th. Please continue to help us fight this  Judicial Review, which may have a bearing on the upcoming Planning Inquiry – and then visit the Save VTG website for details of how to contribute to their campaign: https://www.savevictoriatowergardens.co.uk/

We have just heard that our Judicial Review will take place in the week commencing 7^th September. This will mean that we should know, before it happens, who will be the ultimate decision-maker at the Planning Inquiry in October/November.

We hope that this decision on Victoria Tower Gardens will be taken out of the hands of a representative of this Government, whose members had already collectively committed to building this Memorial and Learning Centre in this popular small public park before Westminster City Council had decided on the planning permission.

At present, a public inquiry is scheduled for October, when the Planning Inspector will look at a variety of evidence and consider the many planning policies that protect our open spaces.  However, the current arrangements mean that the Planning Inspector is merely an advisor to the Government. 

We want to make sure that the person or people making the decision are wholly impartial.  But to get to this stage we need lawyers to represent us, and money to pay the lawyers. We have had contributions from 123 people so far, one tenth of those who have seen our Crowd Justice page.

We have had wonderful coverage in recent weeks in The Sunday Times and Private Eye amongst other print media, but we need your help.  With your support and those of your like-minded friends we are sure this will help to swell our funds. If you can pass this plea on to all your contacts, via Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn or anywhere else we would be very grateful.