Highways authority to pay £100k costs after losing tree dispute with planning authority

North Yorkshire County Council will have to pay an estimated £100,000 after losing a dispute with Scarborough Borough Council over who should pick up the legal costs incurred in a battle over a 100-year-old beech tree.

The total legal costs are understood to have reached more than £250,000 but the difference is covered by insurance.

North Yorkshire – as the local highways authority – felled the tree on Main Street in Irton in October 2011.

It had first sought to do so four years before after the owners of 23 Main Street had complained that the tree was causing a nuisance by damaging their property and impeding access. After receiving advice, the county council accepted the position.

Protests about the proposed felling of the tree led to Scarborough, the planning authority, putting a tree preservation order on the beech in 2007. The borough council then refused to give consent for the tree to be felled.

The owners of 23 Main Street and North Yorkshire then sought a declaration from the courts that the tree was causing a nuisance and could be felled under s. 198(6)(b) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

On 19 August 2011 a judge at Scarborough County Court gave North Yorkshire permission to remove the tree.

However, the county council was then forced to obtain a High Court injunction after protesters climbed the beech. The last protester came down at the end of September.

North Yorkshire took the view that the costs of the legal battle were significantly increased as a result of the TPO, and – after taking legal advice and in accordance with arrangements with its insurers – took Scarborough to court.

After a hearing on 21 December a county court judge ruled that Scarborough had no responsibility for any costs.

Cllr Gareth Dadd, North Yorkshire’s executive member for highways, said: "It is regrettable that the matter had to come before the courts again, but it was not possible to reach a negotiated settlement with Scarborough Borough Council over the costs."