We recently reported on the Council’s outrageous decision to remove Green Belt land to the North-East of Chesham from a list of Assets of Community Value (ACV) and you will be aware that BNG had taken legal advice which revealed that there were several grounds for mounting a challenge under Judicial Review.
Unfortunately, such challenges are not granted automatically, they require Leave of the Court and as such are expensive. Also for understandable reasons, most lawyers want fees paid in advance of such litigation.
For the last couple of months, BNG have been campaigning against this ACV Review decision with a view to raising further funds from the community to mount a Judicial Review challenge. However, the time limits for making any such legal challenges are very restrictive and it is with some reluctance that the BNG directors recently concluded that they could not fund this litigation.
This is not only due to funding but also because other developments relating to the Local Plan Stage One Public Examination Hearings being recently been announced, which now requires BNG’s focus and for remaining funds to be prioritised to maintain BNG’s continued opposition to the Local Plan.
The Local Plan is still seeking to allocate this land for development and to remove a number of villages around Chesham from Green Belt status. These proposals and many other flawed components of the Local Plan are of serious concern to many BNG supporters as well as to other community groups and BNG felt that the ACV issue, whilst grossly unfair, should not be a distraction from this objective. However, BNG are not abandoning the ACV issue and will be making a formal complaint to the Local Authority about the ACV Review Decision which may then be referred to the Local Government Ombudsman in due course.
We continue to welcome financial contributions from the community as already with current expenditure on consultancy & legal advice our funds have run down with BNG Directors dipping further into their pockets to make up the shortfall. Go to our fundraising page to see how you can help.
We will be publishing further news over the the next couple of days.
Thanks
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