Beddington Farmlands JR Closing Comments

The JR is now over and the court will make a final decision within two or three weeks.

No point in making predictions and comment with the benefit of hindsight so will comment now.

I think the judge will rule in favour of the council and permit the application.

The only legitimate case I thought existed was the case of a biased planning officers report with regards to the impact on the nature conservation and the resulting inadequate mitigation (which was not adequate if the true nature of the factors such as the failed conservation management plan were taken into account).

The Green Party led on the JR case with a blanket anti-incineration strategy. We explored making two cases but were advised they would work against each other so the anti-incineration approach was taken (as the Green party had political/legal structures in place to move quickly). That anti-incineration strategy is largely a statement about unjust laws but that wouldn't make a legal case in this context. There is nothing illegal about incineration and the Beddington ER complies with EA regulations and all the environmental laws that are in place. Those laws and regulations may be incorrect and unjust but a judicial review only looks into whether the law (whether right or wrong) is being upheld. The strategy therefore was to look for a technicality, a flaw in the box ticking exercise which is the planning system, in the hope that someone has ticked the wrong box and that the planning application will be stopped due to an error. Basically this was the only way to stop the incinerator.

However while the focus was on stopping the incinerator by chance (luck) a real matter of reasoned concern existed. The matter of the failed conservation management plan, the breaches in previous environmental obligations, the disappearing wildlife populations and the failure of the planning officers to advise the planning committee on that  was being drowned out by party agendas and emotive opinions.

The Green party did not want to follow  that strategy because those problems could have been solved by looking at the mitigation package and working out a deal that would solve the past problems and create a better future for the reserve, the local community and the wildlife. However that would not stop the incinerator and the Green Party had their sights set on that.

So, a party agenda item, anti-incineration, ended up trumping the chance of actually looking at a specific local problem and working out a way of balancing conflict and moving forward in the best way possible. To me this is ironic as it equates to the Green Party actually being partly responsible for the loss of wildlife at Beddington Farmlands as they in effect hi-jacked the discussion table in the hope that luck would rule in their favour to stop something that they thought was wrong (but was not illegal) and in doing so, lost the chance of working within the present reality to minimise damage and work steadily towards a better future, so it's an own goal (once again) for the local community that are interested in people and nature.

The High Court situation was interesting. Three judges (two observers, one a young lady from Romania ((Why don't our English judges look like that!) and a guy from Italy), two QCs on the Council and Viridors side, with one of them earning £8000 an hour according to some sources, a line of Viridor officers, some council officers and then on the other side the only people in the room that weren't being paid to be there (the locals and naturalists) and best of all the claimant, a self proclaimed regular family man- paying the bill for the whole proceedings so that everyone else can make a load of money and the courts and the QCs get their pound of flesh of a billion pound contract. Maybe the Green Party made some political capital from the whole thing and maybe the claimant will have earned himself a higher position in the Green party political hierarchy. Who knows?, all I know is that the local wildlife and Beddington Farmlands  is fucked and has been used for all different kinds of people to fight over for a whole range of personal agendas. Here are the results for the special species that are trying to survive at the farmlands (see table below). Biodiversity is a quality of life indicator and locally that indicator is nose diving. Nobody is winning out of this conflict- we are all going down the fucking pan.

Anyway, maybe I'm wrong and the final decision will be different to what I suspect. Nothing would make me happier than to be wrong. In the meantime I'm off to the Azores for some fresh air.

Breeding pairs of the target species for selected years

	1995	2000	2005	2010	2013	Notes on breeding population
Little Ringed Plover	1	1	1	0	0	Extinct
Ringed Plover	0	1	0	0	0	Failed
Lapwing	11	18	22	14	11	Initial improvement now declining
Redshank	4	1	2	0	0	Extinct
Common Tern	0	0	0	0	0	Failed
Yellow Wagtail	5	0	0	0	0	Extinct
Sedge Warbler	11	25	1	2	0	Extinct
Reed Warbler	31	19	13	32	17	Declining
Whitethroat	73	76	66	55	40	Declining
Tree Sparrow	83	52	75	80	9	Near-extinct
Reed Bunting	23	17	5	3	1	Near-extinct