Allotment holders launch legal challenge over site appropriation

A group of allotment holders are planning to launch judicial review proceedings after the Communities Secretary consented to the site’s appropriation for development.

Watford Borough Council has said the Farm Terrace allotment land is needed for the viability of a scheme to expand Watford Hospital and build 600 homes. The authority’s Cabinet decided in December 2012 to appropriate the allotments.

The claimants argue that Eric Pickles unlawfully failed to follow his own policy criteria in May 2013, in that he granted consent under s. 8 of the Allotments Act 1925 to the appropriation of allotments which were not unnecessary or surplus to requirements, without recognising that this was a requirement of the policy or explaining the justification for departing from the policy in this case.

The allotment holders add that there was a legitimate expectation that the Secretary of State’s policy, including the criterion that consent would only be granted if allotments are unnecessary or surplus to requirements, would be applied.

A second ground of challenge is based on the inadequacy of the replacement site provision.

The council has offered plot holders places at another site in South Oxhey, but this is more than a mile away.

The claimants say the Communities Secretary’s lack of reasoning on the adequacy of the site at Paddock Road as an alternative replacement site rendered his decision unlawful.

They also suggest that Watford BC’s failure to put in place adequate measures to facilitate the relocation of the Farm Terrace allotment holders meant the grant of unconditional consent was unlawful.

The allotment holders say that the Secretary of State had proceeded on the basis that the council was committed to investing £800,000 in the re-provision of allotments, but the claimants suggested that no such commitment appeared to have been made.

In addition, the claimants argue that the minister had not considered the equalities implications of the reappropriation of the allotments and so did not expressly have regard to his duties under s. 149 of the Equality Act 2010.

The allotment holders’ lawyers, Deighton Pierce Glynn, said: “We have been instructed to challenge the Government’s decision to allow Watford Borough Council to let Farm Terrace Allotments be built on.

“There has been a long-running campaign to keep the site, which is in central Watford, for allotments, but the council has nonetheless pressed ahead and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has allowed them to do so.”

Partner Adam Hundt has instructed Jason Coppel QC of 11KBW to act in the case.

The deadline for the Communities Secretary to respond to the letter before claim is 26 July.

Writing on a site set up to raise funds for the legal action, Sara Jane Trebar, one of the allotment holders, said: “Our case shows that the Secretary of State has not applied his policy lawfully and we are going to take legal action to prove it.

“If we win, not only will we save Farm Terrace but we will strike a blow for the protection of allotments all over England as it will make it much harder for them to be developed on. As far as we are aware no decision to close an allotment site has been legally challenged before and if won would be referred to in future allotment closure applications.”