High Court to hear JR challenge over air defence missiles on residential tower

The High Court will today (9 July) hear a judicial review challenge over plans to site air defence missile systems on top of a residential tower block near the Olympic Games site.

Following confidential discussions with the Ministry of Defence, the London Borough of Waltham Forest agreed on 19 April to grant a lease on top of the Fred Wigg Tower in Leytonstone.

The lawyers for the residents, Howe & Co, are seeking an injunction over plans to locate Ground Based Air Defence (GBAD) High Velocity Missile (HVM) systems there.

According to Martin Howe, the residents of the tower were only informed of the Ministry of Defence’s plans when leaflets were put through their door on 27 April.

The case will be heard in the High Court by Mr Justice Haddon-Cave.

Howe said it was "astonishing" that there had been no form of consultation with the residents. "[They] were handed a ‘done deal’ and effectively told to ‘like it or lump it’," he claimed.

“If there had been a consultation from the outset, representations could have been made for the MOD to build a large firing tower or platform for the missiles, much like the 'supersanger' towers used by the army in Northern Ireland, in the extensive fields behind the Fred Wigg Tower or for the MOD to agree to relocate worried and genuinely concerned residents and their young children elsewhere during the period of the missile deployment.”

Eighty-six residents of the tower, from 61 of the 108 occupied flats, signed a petition opposing the deployment of missiles.

Howe said the residents accepted there was a need to protect the Olympic Games. But he added: “It is incredible that the army thinks it acceptable for civilians to be placed effectively in a military forward base without their consent. It is like oil and water. Active military missile units and ordinary citizens do not mix.”