Court showdown in allotment fight
COUNCIL CHALLENGES JUDGE’S RULING
IT’S D-Day for campaigners fighting to stop their allotments being bulldozed for new school playing fields in Huddersfield.
The David and Goliath battle between plotholders in Birkby and Kirklees Council is being thrashed out today at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
The council is appealing against a judicial review last May when Mr Justice Kerr ruled that land at Cemetery Road in Birkby, which had been appropriated by the council for new school playing fields, should remain as permanent allotments
The council wants to take part of the allotments for the proposed £9.7m Brambles Primary Academy in nearby Clare Hill.
Tenants have been offered new, alternative plots.
Following the judicial review, at the High Court in Leeds, only the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Robert Jenrick, could intervene to take the land for educational use.
In the judgement handed down on May 10, the judge refused the council permission to appeal against the verdict.
However, the council filed appellant’s notice on May 29.
The authority has since confirmed that it would seek permission from the Secretary of State to go ahead with its plans to build the new school.
Referring to the appeal, senior Labour councillor Graham Turner
its said: “We feel, as an authority with responsibilities to those we support and care for, that we must continue this fight.”
It has been estimated that the oneday appeal could cost the council as much as £40,000.
Jonathan Adamson, a plotholder and a member of Friends of Cemetery Road Allotments, will lead the plotholders’ case supported by a pro-bono solicitor and a legal expert from the National Allotment Society.
Allotments group spokeswoman Debby Fulgoni described the last few months as “frustrating and exhausting”.
“It feels so unnecessary,” she said. “We can’t go forward. We’re stuck in this limbo of not knowing whether we can work our allotments or not.”
She said there were “very simple solutions” that could work for everyone involved, “including the council”.
But she added: “The council has been single-minded the whole time.
“They don’t see the point of mediation with the National Allotment Society, which looks bad for them.
“If the council had gone to the Secretary of State at the very beginning of this process for disposal of the allotments this could have been avoided.
“They are trying to prove that these allotments are temporary so that they can take them, but this probably works across Kirklees.
“If these are proved to be temporary then other allotment sites would also be vulnerable to development.
“That’s why we’re fighting it. We are going in to court with an open mind and we believe that we can win again.”
Plot holders at Cemetery Road were scathing about the council’s plans for the allotments.
One said: “Kirklees Council have tunnel vision. They can’t see anything other than what they want.
“We’ve tried to compromise with them and they don’t want to know. It’s like Big Brother: ‘Do as we say.’”
Another added: “The local community is 100 per cent behind us. People have been telling me that they hope everything goes well for us.
“Losing some plots at the top [of the allotments] is the thin end of the wedge. If the bottom plots go as well then I’m out of here.
“But we have to be optimistic. Whichever way it goes we are disappointed at the extra cost that’s been involved.”