Cars and fish

Now into our third week and the inquiry is going in circles. Back to the same issues where Hallam seem to be in complete disarray - their planned phosphate removal scheme to protect the River Mease and their traffic proposals to deal with all the cars this site will bring. But we were promised the latest evidence on their traffic model.

After continuing the questioning of Hallam's landscape witness by the barrister acting for the Burton Road site (again a beauty contest and lots of subjective discussion about loss of landscape), we got onto the main focus of the inquiry which is Hallam's planning evidence. This covers everything and their witness, who essentially holds together their case, had to deal with everything. Up to a point that is. Of course the really difficult questions about water treatment were for their water expert (already heard from him) and the really difficult questions about traffic were for their traffic expert (he's on tomorrow). And then, there is "them".

Who is "them"? Well, "them" is Hallam Land - who are the appellants in this case. Asked about who was going to pay for the water treatment works, we were told we'd have to ask "them". "Them" would also tell us if Severn Trent Water had agreed to carry out all this work (they haven't). The trouble is that "them" aren't an entity who are taking part in this inquiry - it's their barrister and their expert witnesses. So maybe we'll never know? What we do know is that "them" think they can start building houses before the water treatment is in place...

No sign of the traffic model.

A long and winding session of cross examination from both Council and MoneyHill barristers didn't really upset the planning witness. He's clearly done this many times before and knows the drill. Barristers always ask questions for which a yes/know answer will suffice. But why use one word when 100 will do? And so it was that various bits of Hallam propaganda about how they could deliver in a way nobody else could were interspersed into his answers.

Still no sign of the traffic model.

It went on a long time and by the time the graveyard shift had arrived it left us just 15 minutes for our own moment of glory. We focussed on the independent market report they'd had commissioned and made a pretty compelling case (if I may say so) that Ashby is becoming an unsustainable dormitory town for the West Midlands - drawing attention to all the industrial sites in the town that have been turned into housing. Of course their witness wouldn't have any of this. So I asked him if he thought everyone would be cynical and disenfranchised if they'd been consulted on a local plan and then this scheme were allowed ahead of that. He began to get it and had to concede that local people had a right to be heard.

We'll see how "them" get on with their traffic and sustainability evidence tomorrow. We might be honoured with a little peak at the traffic model before then.