International environmental campaigners have backed a tenacious St Andrews campaigner in her fight to protect her beloved home town from a “tsunami” of development.
The support has come from Friends of the Earth, who believe it is wrong that she faces a potential legal bill of over £173,000.
Veteran campaigner Penny Uprichard failed twice to convince Scottish judges in the Court of Session in Edinburgh they should stop Scottish Government-approved plans to allow builders to increase the size of St Andrews by up to one quarter.
Now judges at the UK Supreme Court in London will decide whether the proposals for a minimum of 1,000 houses, a business and science park and a distributor road on the western edge of St Andrews should be thrown out despite being granted permission as part of Fife Council’s 20-year planning blueprint.
If she loses, Miss Uprichard could face considerable financial difficulties.
She is already facing a legal bill of £173,000 for her action and subsequent appeal, both of which were thrown out in Edinburgh. This bill, and more, could still have to be paid.
However, the Supreme Court allowed her to raise the substantive issues of the devlopment as well as costs.
Last year Miss Uprichard made legal history when the Supreme Court confirmed that she was being awarded a Protective Costs Order for the Supreme Court part of her case of £6,000.
Yesterday, as Miss Uprichard attended the UK Supreme Court for the start of the hearing, Mary Church, environmental justice campaigner at Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: “No one should have to face such excessive costs for going to court to stand up for the environment.
“Scotland is bound under international law to ensure that people can hold governments and public authorities to account in court over decisions that impact on the environment, and that legal action is affordable. By no stretch of the imagination is £173,000 affordable.”