This should get them thinking!!
Hope they have got deep pockets!!
An unprecedented decision means council tax payers in Hertfordshire will have to foot part of a £1m bill after Herts County Council was found to have acted ‘unreasonably’ while opposing the Stansted Airport expansion.
After hearing six months of evidence at a public inquiry last year, planning inspector Alan Boyland concluded that the inadequacies of the case presented by Uttlesford district and Herts county councils mean they should pay part of BAA's costs, estimated at more than £1m. Along with Essex, the councils spent £430,000 presenting their case.
Mr Boyland's recommendation that expansion from a maximum of 25m to 35m passengers a year should be allowed, in accordance with 2003's Air Transport White Paper, was endorsed by the Government last week - as was his finding that the councils' flawed arguments put the airport to some unnecessary expense when it appealed against refusal of planning permission.
The rarity of the ruling - believed to be a first - is emphasised in a letter from the Department for Communities and Local Government to both councils, which reads: ‘In planning appeals both parties are normally expected to meet their own expenses and costs are only awarded on grounds of 'unreasonable behaviour' resulting in unnecessary expense.'
‘The Secretary of State [Hazel Blears] agrees with the inspector and accepts his recommendations. Accordingly she has decided that an award of partial costs against Uttlesford District Council and Herts County Council on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour is justified.’