Day 4 - 22nd November 2013

Post date: Nov 23, 2013 10:00:28 AM

The day opened with Philip Grover taking the witness seat to answer questions from the UBB QC, Richard Phillips.

There followed a prickly exchange where Mr Phillips became increasingly frustrated by the GCC witness’s answers and his failure to concede on various points to do with the interpretation of the heritage regulations.

What did prove puzzling was the fact that Philip Grover agreed with the UBB stance that English Heritage had not been accurate in their assessment of the degree of harm suffered to the local Heritage Assets and that the damage was only moderate rather than substantial.

The effect of this combined stance was to effectively undermine the objection from English Heritage by attempting to devalue the weight which the Inspector should place on the evidence.

Mr Richrd Phillips QC seemed to relish doing his best to ridicule to content of the two letters from English Heritage and suggest that they should be given little weight even though English Heritage are a Statutory Government Consultee.

It was true that Mr Grover had not had his task made any easier because GCC had already agreed with UBB that English Heritage were not competent to comment on need in the statement of common ground between the two parties.

The day finished at 14.30 due in part that it was POETS night and the enquiry will recommence on Tuesday 26th November at 10.00am when Robert Gillespie is due to take the witness box.