The legal arguments are over. Can campaigners save the Wellingborough Walks trees?
After two days of legal back and forth, deputy High Court judge Daniel Kolinsky has now retired to consider his ruling
By Sarah Ward
“It is important to understand even if we don’t win in the high court, in a sense we have won. This has brought the community together and the trees have been there for a year longer than they may have been. We have achieved some incredible things.”
That was Marion Turner-Hawes speaking to NN Journal yesterday travelling back on the train from the High Court after the final day of the judicial review.
After rattling tins, holding events and securing donations, the Wellingborough Walks Action Group (WWAG) fundraised more than £70,000 to pay for expert legal counsel so that the fight that began on a tree lined avenue in Wellingborough last winter culminated in a judicial review at London’s High Court.
Marion says:
“We are hopeful we will win and we have done our best. It has been hard work but we feel inspired and we have done what we set out to do.
“We wanted to get the issue in front of a judge and we have been very well represented by our barrister. The judge seemed to have a very even handed approach, with everyone able to have their say and now we will just wait.”
Over the two days three legal teams (for the campaigners, the North unitary and the developer) argued the points of a complicated planning situation which has its roots back in 2008, when the former Wellingborough Borough Council granted permission for the Stanton Cross development - a large housing estate in the Eastern part of the town. In 2017 the historic lime trees that line London Road and that date back to the late 1800s, were given tree protection orders by the council.
Houses started being built on the new Stanton Cross in 2015 and in February last year the developer Stanton Cross Developments LLP appointed contractors on site near London Road to start pulling down the trees ahead of a new access road.
What then happened was described in court by deputy high court judge Daniel Kolinsky as a ‘dramatic event’ as after being alerted to what was about to occur, a group of local’s including Marion Turner-Hawes, organised peaceful protests to prevent the trees from being felled. They managed to hold off the saws for several days, but then after arrests and the assertion by the local authority that the developers were statutory undertakers - and therefore had authority to fell the trees for the infrastructure works - 15 trees were axed. 46 remain.
Protests continued and Marly Lyman and barrister Paul Powlesland climbed into a tree and with mounting local pressure and media attention, a decision was taken to stop the felling after a request by the council. In March the council stated that as it was bird nesting season and conditions were imposed, trees could not be felled until August. Since then none have been cut down.
At the high court on Tuesday, the campaigners legal counsel William Upton KC outlined the grounds on which the judicial review was brought. The campaigners say the act of cutting down the trees was unlawful, because while there are certain exemptions under which protected trees can be cut down, these exemptions were not enjoyed by the developer, because in part it had not satisfied planning pre conditions.
He also said there had not been, and still does not exist, a plan of which of the trees were to be removed and said the legal position of the council as the defendant is ‘obscure’.
The developer’s lawyer Sabir Sheikh argued that the cutting down of the trees did not constitute the start of the road building (therefore the developer had not at that stage had to comply with planning pre conditions) and claimed that the developer had ‘bent over backwards’ to appease local people outraged at the tree destruction.
She also said it had never been the developer’s case that they were statutory undertakers. (The council says different and had written notes of a meeting at which the developer had claimed the authority).
The outcome could therefore have legal ramifications for four people who were arrested during the protests. After several days of peaceful protests, some of the group, including 84 year old Anthony Loukes, were arrested, with Northamptonshire police citing that as ‘statutory undertakers’ the developer had the right to fell the trees and by preventing them from doing so the protestors were stopping legal activity. If they were not ‘statutory undertakers’ as they now argue, then the reason given for the police for the arrests comes under question and therefore possible challenge.
The judge will now make a written ruling. The campaigners, as claimants, would like him to quash the decision of North Northamptonshire Council that the works to fell the trees come under an exemption in the tree preservation order regulations. They would also like a declaration that planning conditions attached to the road construction and the felling of the trees have not been satisfied.
Marion is hopeful the trees can be saved. Last May the group hired a highways consultant who showed how the new road could be built without cutting down any trees (or at least save the vast majority of the remaining 46).
She said she hopes the legal challenge they have mounted and the way the community has pulled together will mark a new way of doing things with the local authority and a new collegiate approach.
She said the attendance of 50 people at Wellingborough Town Council meeting on Tuesday, where an application to discharge some planning conditions linked to the Stanton Cross development was presented, shows that public interest and scrutiny has grown.
She said:
“The community does not have to be a problem [for the council]. They need to work with us.”
Read again
The octogenarian arrested for protecting trees
Good morning, This week I met up in a Wellingborough cafe with Anthony Loukes, who has been part of the peaceful protests against the destruction of an avenue of lime trees in the town. Here’s his story and how he came to be arrested. Part of this interview is behind a paywall. This is not to be awkward and to spoil your reading pleasure, but because NNJ’s writing is funded only by our readers. We are truly independent, no advertisers, no mystery backers, just paid for by local residents who want to read unrestricted news.
This is what happens when councils and developers ride roughshod over historic communities.
More power to the campaigners who are just trying to save some of the character and history of Wellingborough amid an onslaught of development led increasing traffic levels.
Three cheers for campaigners and all they have achieved. So many people in Wellingborough feel strongly about this, surely it’s time for NNC to admit their mistake and change the plans.
Sheffield Council was finally forced to halt their disastrous tree felling, and later they offered their residents an open apology. I shall look forward to the same from NNC.