I was unbelievably disappointed by the actions of Cambridgeshire County Council recently when it pulled out of judicial review proceedings against the Sunnica solar farm in East Cambridgeshire. The joint administration at the County Council has badly let down local people.
Judicial review proceedings from four local councils against the Sunnica solar farm project will no longer be pursued after Cambridgeshire County Council and West Suffolk Council chose to withdraw from the process.
Suffolk County Council and East Cambridgeshire District Council remained committed to seeing through the legal challenge but were left in an impossible position. With West Suffolk Council and Cambridgeshire County Council abandoning the process, the cost of legal fees for the two remaining councils versus the likely financial return in a successful outcome was no longer a justifiable use of public funds.
Cambridgeshire County Council took no legal advice of its own in this matter, instead relying on the legal advice that was taken by the other three Councils. All three sets of legal advice were consistent and the four Councils joined together to begin legal proceedings, expending public money in doing so, by way of issuing a Pre-Action Protocol letter to the Secretary of State Ed Miliband, who had given the project the go-ahead.
Following receipt of a response from the Secretary of State, the legal advice was still that there was a good case to pursue. Despite this, and after once again failing to take legal advice, Cambridgeshire County Council decided to pull out from the group action.
The three remaining Councils agreed to continue and to bear the cost equally between them, even though all four Councils stood to benefit financially from a successful outcome. When West Suffolk Council also pulled out, the case to continue could no longer be justified financially.
It can surely be no coincidence that Cambridgeshire County Council relies on Labour votes in its Liberal Democrat led coalition administration and that the new Secretary of State Ed Miliband is part of the Labour Government. The Liberal Democrats at Cambridgeshire County Council have prioritised their relationship with their Labour administration colleagues over the needs of local people in East Cambridgeshire.
As a result, local taxpayers are going to have to foot the bill for the costs to the councils of dealing with the planning aspects of this unwanted, appalling development on high-grade food production land in rural East Cambridgeshire.
