On 15th January Richard Roberts (HCC) released the legal advice that was used to justify the vote to sell the land to SEGRO – subject to price and contractual agreement, and also responded in email to all those who had written to him in the last week asking for the legal advice.
The copy of the 2018 legal advice by Rhodri Lewis QC, of 26th Jan 2018 (now 5 years old) sent to Daisy Cooper, had a paragraph removed. His advice contained a large chunk of his previous advice from 20th June 2016, and it was para 14 from this that was missing. It is significant that they chose to remove it from the disclosed advice.
Omitted Section: It is now nearly 2 years since the decision letter was issued and longer than that since an Inspector considered the merits of the proposal. In that time much may have changed in terms of the need for a rail freight interchange (particularly as there have been developments in rail transport with Crossrail and HS2) and the position in terms of the availability of alternatives may be different. The County Council may legitimately look at such matters in its decision making.
If HCC refused to sell the land to SEGRO, SEGRO could take HCC to court. Alternatively SEGRO could ask the Secretary of State to issue a DCO – to force HCC to sell the land. This would take away any doubt, and HCC would avoid any political responsibility for what happens. However, it would reopen all the planning and consultation issues. Given that it failed on these before – and now legislation on a number of ecological, environmental etc issues is stricter, it is not a given that they would get it, given that the current Secretary of State has stated that ‘planning decisions should be made at a local level, so considers that Herts County Council is the decision maker in this matter’. (20th December 2022) It is not over yet. They are having to use a new KC – he might see things differently.
Slowly we are exposing that HCC do not have to sell, but If they do, it is their choice.
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