Day one!

It started with a crisp Autumn morning. Mist rising from the Packington Nook meadows and drifting over Lower Packington Road as the sun rose.

Off to a good start at the Royal Hotel, promptly at 10am. As predicted the room was too small for our supporters (thank you) and a brief adjournment saw the council's team lose their table to fit more public seating.

Everyone who is opposing the appeal was there, with their barristers. The council, us, Environment Agency, Highways Agency, Burton Road and Moneyhill developers. Leicestershire County Council and Natural England are being represented by the council's barrister, Chris Young. Hallam lost another appeal in Harrogate last week, so turning up to Ashby to see this opposition must have been rather demoralising!

It's heartening to know that the Inspector has seen the site - arriving early yesterday for a walk around the footpaths. He'll be taking another stroll there once he's heard the arguments at the end of the inquiry. Outside the hotel, I noticed that the county council will be staging a bit of traffic congestion for next week with the closure of Station Road under the railway bridge. I wonder if that is a coincidence!

The opening statement from the council's barrister was bullish. Fairly straight to the point on questioning the tardiness of much of Hallam's evidence which, for important highways and water quality issues, is still incomplete. Concerned that we hadn't quite done our homework, it was gratifying to hear that even the Inspector hadn't read the evidence from Hallam received over the past couple of days. Hopefully we can get everything done and dusted in the three weeks the inquiry is set to run.

The first witness from the council, Steffan Saunders, works in the planning policy team. He described how the LDF is evolving and went on to produce a new report which asks the cabinet of the council to approve a proposal for 1000 houses in Ashby, of which 472 still need to be found. It showed that the council are working hard on their local plan, which is a contention being pursued by Hallam. We'll see where that gets them later in the inquiry.

Wednesday will be landscape, Environment Agency and noise. Evidence about noise from the A42, that is!