Outcome of Judicial Review enquiries
As mentioned in our last planning article, Henbury Parish Council (HPC) recently sought advice from a Barrister regarding the possibility of launching a Judicial Review (JR) to overturn the decision to approve the 400+ houses either side of Chelford Road.
HPC brought several serious issues to the attention of the Barrister, including the point that in our view, the Air Quality Assessment for the developments significantly underestimated the current and future pollution levels along Broken Cross Road within the existing AQMA. Despite going into some detail with the Barrister on this particular issue, the recommendation was that "a Judge would quickly characterise this as an impermissible invitation to trespass into areas of expert judgment" and we would be unsuccessful with a JR.
The JR process, it seems, is a particularly blunt instrument in this regard.
Your Parish Councillors have put in significant time & effort, sought opinions of external experts and repeatedly highlighted the issues with several planning applications to the council, but unfortunately at this stage, it seems there is no further action we can take.
The Parish Council will continue to monitor the detailed planning applications relating to these developments, and ensure that they are scrutinised appropriately.