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Jun 2021
Harrogate council paid £45,000 in Kirby Hill and Ripon service station legal fees
Harrogate Borough Council paid more than £45,000 in legal fees to defend a decision to refuse a controversial service station near Kirby Hill.
According to the council’s own public record of expenses, the authority paid Stephen Whale QC £45,491 in counsel fees for the inquiry.
The figures show the council made three payments of £43,000, £750 and £1,741 between January and March this year.
Harrogate Borough Council said the fees also included a successful defence of a decision to refuse a proposal for a service station on the A1(M) near Ripon at the same hearing.
The Stray Ferret asked the council whether the sum was the total paid to Mr Whale and if it wished to comment on the fees.
A council spokesman said:
Read more:
A1 service station decision ‘flies in the face of localism’, say campaigners
‘There is a need’ for A1 service station near Kirby Hill, inquiry told
- Kirby Hill campaigners call for review of service station decision
Mr Whale, of London-based Landmark Chambers, appeared at the hearing in February.
The hearing lasted two weeks and included multiple testimonies to defend the council’s refusal of the proposal.
But it resulted in the service station between junction 48 and 49 on the A1(M) northbound being approved after 25 years of public inquiries and planning battles.
However, a separate appeal from Moto Hospitality Ltd for a motorway service station on the A1 near Ripon at junction 50 was rejected.
David Rose, the government’s planning inspector who oversaw the inquiry, said the benefits of the service station near Kirby Hill would outweigh the harm.
Campaigners call for review
Since the approval, campaigners in Kirby Hill have called on the government to review the inspector’s decision.
They have questioned one of the policies used in the inspector’s report to approve the site, which says that the distance between motorway service areas should be “no more than 28 miles, but it can be shorter”.
Gareth Owens, chair of Kirby Hill Residents Against Motorway Services, said the decision made in April “does not make sense”.
Mr Owens said the policy “appears to have been plucked out of thin air” and called for a review of the decision.
He told the Stray Ferret earlier this week:
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