Local campaigner loses judicial review application over new medical facility

A local campaigner must pay more than £45,000 in costs after losing a judicial review application over the construction of a new medical facility, the BBC has reported.

The Save the Northern Meadows group claimed there were defects with the environmental impact assessment conducted for the Velindre Cancer Centre in Cardiff.

But Mr Justice Cranston rejected this and said a Nuffield Trust report in 2020 took into account a range of views on co-locating a new hospital at University Hospital of Wales and said ecology was a planning matter and not part of the business case.

He ordered objector Catherine Lewis, who took the case, to pay £10,328.50 in costs to the Welsh Government and £35,853.60 to Velindre University NHS Trust.

Ms Lewis told the BBC these costs were excessive and claimed she felt “bullied”.

The new centre is due to open in summer 2025.

Save the Northern Meadows said it sought to safeguard “23 acres of meadow, ancient trees, shrub, grassland…space for our residents, near and far, used widely, for our health and wellbeing”.

Mark Smulian