AC-2024-LON-001877 - [2025] EWHC 2132 (Admin)

Mr Jones KC submitted that the Second Defendant’s evidence had been inadequate to show that the Scheme was funded, viable and capable of delivery within a reasonable timescale. There had been a history of abortive regeneration schemes at JRP. In that context, it had been vital for the inspector to ask himself whether he had sufficient, reliable evidence both on the costs of the Scheme and its funding to enable him to be satisfied that the Scheme was likely to be delivered.

It was submitted that the evidence before the public inquiry raised unresolved and real uncertainties about the costs of the Scheme and sources of funding. There had been a sudden and substantial increase in the projected costs. It was unreasonable of the inspector to have rejected the Claimant’s case for independent assessment and scrutiny of the target costs budget put forward by the Second Defendant. In making that case, the Claimant was doing no more that relying on and repeating the concerns of the Second Defendant’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee, which had been unreasonably rejected by Cabinet. In the absence of such independent assessment, the inspector had lacked the objective evidence which he needed in order to form a reasonable, independent judgment of the reliability of the projected costs relied upon by the Second Defendant.

There was no evidence before the inquiry to show that the PWLB was committed or even willing to fund the Scheme. The inspector had not heard evidence from the Second Defendant’s Director of Finance as to how any loan made by the PWLB was to be serviced from the Second Defendant’s own resources, which were known to be under pressure.

For these reasons, there were real and unresolved concerns about the viability of the Scheme. Similar concerns had caused the inspector deciding the Dagenham decision, and following the CPO Guidance, to refuse to confirm the compulsory purchase order in that case. The inspector was not able lawfully to disregard that comparable decision simply on the basis that a full copy had not been provided to him. He had been referred to the Dagenham decision. The principle of consistency required that he take it properly into consideration.

Mr Jones KC submitted that the inspector had misinterpreted the CPO Guidance. He had proceeded on the basis that it was sufficient to ask whether there was a reasonable possibility of the Scheme being delivered. That, however, was too narrow. Properly understood, the CPO Guidance required the inspector firstly to establish the prospects of the Scheme being delivered; and having done so, to weigh the likely prospects of delivery in the balance when determining whether the Second Defendant has compelling justified the case for compulsory purchase. In order to do so, the inspector needed to make a properly informed assessment of the viability of the Scheme and to take steps to avail himself of the evidence reasonably needed for that purpose. He had failed to take those steps, with the result that his conclusion in DL26 was both unlawful and inadequately explained by the reasons which he purported to give in DL22 to DL25.