Hotel business withdraws request for judicial review of TPO mid-hearing
A hotel company has withdrawn mid-hearing its application to the High Court for a judicial review asking for a tree preservation order (TPO) to be set aside.
Bob Potter Leisure Ltd had made the application in relation to a TPO in place at Potters International Hotel in Aldershot.
The company had started its application at the Royal Courts of Justice earlier this month (16 November).
The defendant, Rushmoor Borough Council, said that “following extensive questioning by the judge [Mr Justice Holgate], a barrister acting for Bob Potter Leisure Ltd applied to discontinue its application”.
The TPO, protecting 26 trees, was created in 1993, at the time when the former officers' club was being converted into the hotel.
Bob Potter Leisure had submitted its judicial review application in July 2017.
This was a few days before a hearing at Basingstoke Magistrates' Court on 31 July 2017, where it was found guilty of felling several trees subject to the TPO.
The company was fined a total of £42,000 and ordered to pay the council's costs of more than £4,000.
Bob Potter Leisure had denied the charge, claiming that the TPO had not been served correctly and that it was not aware of it.
After the discontinuance of the judicial review claim and following submissions from barristers representing the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, who had been included in the proceedings as an interested party, and Rushmoor Borough Council, Mr Justice Holgate ordered Bob Potter Leisure to pay the Secretary of State's cost of £15,000 and the costs of Rushmoor Borough Council, which came to £6,417.
Rushmoor's Cabinet member for Business, Safety and Regulation, Cllr Ken Muschamp, said: "We are delighted that this case was withdrawn and that our legal expenses and those of the Secretary of State will be fully repaid. This case involved a lot of hard work by our officers and we would not have brought the original matter to court if we didn't feel we had a rock-solid legal case.
"Although we will have our legal costs paid, we feel that the judicial review has been a complete waste of everybody's time. We would not hesitate to do exactly the same again if anyone else removes or ruins a tree covered by a TPO.”
In a statement Bob Potter Leisure said it was disappointed that its application for judicial review had failed "due to their being no judicial review discretion available to it over the strict time limits which the law has imposed for challenging local authority orders".
It added: "Whilst this clearly is a setback in legal terms the company nevertheless maintains that Rushmoor Borough Council in its haste to issue a tree preservation order failed to inform Bob Potter Leisure Ltd in the prescribed manor required by law.
"Apparently in cases such as these, members of the public are barred from raising irregularities concerning the conduct of local authorities by way of the Local Government Act which makes all orders by any local authority unchallengeable in the current Magistrates Court system."
