Council says Armada Way legal fight cost taxpayers 'thousands'

Plymouth City Council leader Tudor Evans says legal challenges related to the £30m redevelopment of Armada Way have cost taxpayers “thousands of pounds”.

Cllr Evans welcomed a High Court judge’s dismissal of a contempt of court action brought by founder of action group Save the Trees of Armada Way (Straw), Ali White, and said the authority was now able to focus on revamping the thoroughfare.

It has not been revealed how much the legal bill is for the council, but Straw has claimed the authority put its costs at £82,000 for the contempt action - and that was just up until last month’s preliminary hearing. The judge did not make an order for costs, however, which means each side will pay their own costs. Straw has said its legal bill for the contempt action was “significantly” less than the council’s.

In March, the council was ordered to pay £35,000 towards Straw’s legal costs for a judicial review into whether the council acted unlawfully when it ordered destruction of 129 trees - which was dismissed.

In today's separate judgement, Mr Justice Sheldon said there was “no real prospect” of Ms White proving a substantive contempt of court had been committed. Giving a 22-page ruling, he said: “There is no real purpose to be served by the court hearing an application for contempt solely for the purpose of seeking to hold the council to account for something which made no material difference.”

Responding to the judgement, Labour’s Cllr Evans said: “We are finally able to put the matter of the Armada Way felling of the trees to rest. It has been frustrating that over the past year, Ali White and Straw have continued to challenge the previous administration’s approach to the felling of the trees through the courts.

“Each time they have been unsuccessful in their legal action. Each time it has cost the taxpayer thousands of pounds. Since the start of this process, we have been clear that it was never in the city’s best interests to argue the rights and wrongs of a decision that was subsequently scrapped and we are pleased that all the live legal action has now concluded. We know that there are some lessons to be learnt, and as we promised the court earlier this year, we will be holding an independent learning review.”

He said the council will now commission experts to lead this work, and is working with public sector network Solace to identify professionals with relevant experience. He said: “We will provide an update shortly as this work will commence asap.”

And Cllr Evans said: “It is now in the best interests of the city to put all our efforts and focus on sorting out Armada Way. We all need to move forward and create a city centre we can all be proud of, rather than dwelling in the past. Work has now started on the new design for Armada Way and will pick up pace over the next few months.”

Straw said it was “obviously extremely disappointed” that the contempt case would not progress and a spokesperson said: “The legality of the council’s actions on the night of the felling will remain unknown.”

The spokesperson added: “We have done all we can to try and hold Plymouth City Council to account over what was, let’s not forget, not only, an appalling act of environmental vandalism but a dark moment for democracy.

"We have no faith that the independent learning review will result in genuine learning but at least because of the legal challenges a lot more information will be available to whoever conducts it.”

Straw said a “silver lining” was that the judgement resulted in “an important precedent” being set, and said it meant that those trying to protect the environment can get costs protection under the Aarhus Convention, as happened in its cases.

The spokesperson said: “This decision will be of help to others, trying to protect the environment. We can only hope that this, together with the political fallout faced by Plymouth City Council, will act as sufficient deterrent against Plymouth City Council and any other local authority contemplating similar environmental harm in the future.”

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