The appeal against the initial rejection of our Judicial Review application will be held at an oral permission hearing listed for 3 October 2019. The hearing will be held at Cardiff Civil Justice Centre, 2 Park Street, CF10 1ET but the time of day will only be notified the day before.   The hearing will be in public and members from the Advearse Steering Group will be attending. If you are interested in attending the hearing then please contact us so we can coordinate and advise you about the arrangements. Our lawyers have said that it cannot hurt our case having a good attendance from the local community to demonstrate the depth of feeling on the issue.   Our lawyers have noted that these hearings are usually short and may last between 30 minutes and 2 hours. This is because the judge will only be determining if we have an “arguable” case, so won’t be looking into it in much detail.  The judge will almost certainly announce the decision on the day. Judgment is normally given orally at the conclusion of the submissions.  On very rare a occasions judgement may be ‘reserved’ with a written decision and judgment to follow.   Our lawyer will attend and make oral arguments having made a further written submission. The Defendant (Dorset Council) and the Interested Party (Hallam Land) may instruct counsel to attend and oppose our application.

It is important to note that the hearing will be in front of a different judge to the one who rejected our initial application. The outcome of the hearing is difficult to predict but we have been advised that it is not unusual for permission to be granted at an oral hearing. If permission is granted then we would be able to progress our case to a full judicial review court hearing.   Once we have received the decision from the oral hearing (win or lose) we will be discussing the outcome with our lawyers in deciding on our next steps. Our aim is by 8th October to issue a statement to our donors and also release a press statement.   Thanks for your ongoing interest and support.