A long-running legal battle over planning permission to redevelop a bowls club has found itself before London’s Court of Appeal for the second time.
The news comes after a High Court decision upholding the original planning application in June 2015 was challenged by a determined campaigner.
Ms Anne-Marie Loader has been fighting Rother District Council over plans to redevelop the Bexhill-based club since 2009.
Backing English Heritage and the Victorian Society, Ms Loader insists that the planning proposals, which initially included the development of 39 sheltered apartments and the complete replacement of two outdoor greens with one new green, have failed to consider the redevelopment’s impact on the club’s surrounding area.
In 2015, A Judge found that Rother District Council failed to consult English Heritage with their initial planning application, yet still ruled in favour of the Council and subsequently upheld permission for the project to go ahead.
But Ms Loader has now brought her case to an Appeals Court for a second time, insisting that Rother District Council has failed to properly understand the National Planning Policy Framework in their revised proposal, which now intends to demolish all of the existing bowls club buildings.
Mrs Justice Patterson told a Court that the site has a ‘considerable planning history’, with permission for such a development first refused in 2003, long before the case made its way to Court.
Earlier proceedings brought forward by Ms Loader went to the High Court in 2011 and the Court of Appeal in 2012, before planning permission was upheld in Court in 2015 and then contested again at an Appeals Court on Wednesday.
The case continues, with both parties determined to see justice.