Decision by Pickles to allow building on allotments heads for judicial review

A High Court judge has given permission to a group of allotment holders for a judicial review challenge over the Communities Secretary’s re-taken decision to give consent to building on the site of their plots.

Eric Pickles conceded in August last year that the original decision to grant consent under s. 8 of the Allotments Act 1925 was unlawful and should be quashed.

The claimants – three plot-holders at Farm Terrace in Watford – argue that the criteria for consent to be granted were not met when the Secretary of State took his fresh decision.

The Communities Secretary is reported to have concluded that building on the allotments was in the public interest.

The land in question would form part of a scheme to expand Watford Hospital and build approximately 700 homes. The claimants have said the development could happen without building on their allotments.

In the High Court earlier this month Mr Justice Supperstone concluded that the claimants’ case was arguable. A full hearing will take place later in 2014.

Adam Hundt, a partner at law firm Deighton Pierce Glynn who is advising the claimants, said: “The Secretary of State has criteria by which applications for consent to build on allotments are assessed, but he has effectively decided that those criteria can be ignored if profit margins are said to be at risk. What is the point of having criteria that are designed to protect allotments from development if they can be ignored with so little justification?

“I am hopeful that the Court will ensure that allotment holders can, in reality, rely on the protection from developers that the Secretary of State’s criteria are said to give their sites.”