[2025] UKUT 312 (LC)

At this stage we mention one feature of the expert evidence which we found unhelpful. As was always apparent from the parties’ statements of case, there is a significant difference between them concerning the approach which, as a matter of law, the Tribunal should take to the prospect of development on sites 2, 3 and 4, the parcels of land which are the subject of the CAAD appeals by the three neighbouring landowners. The expert witnesses called on behalf of Quintain were instructed by its legal advisers to assume for the purpose of their evidence that Quintain’s case on the law was correct and that of the Secretary of State was wrong. They were instructed not to express any view on issues in the appeal which required them to assume that the Secretary of State’s approach might be correct. The experts complied with that instruction. As a result, the evidence available to the Tribunal is limited as we do not have the benefit of the views of Quintain’s experts on some aspects of the appeal.