A St Andrews woman facing a £173,000 bill for challenging development plans in her town has made significant progress in her ongoing legal battle.
Penny Uprichard was told last year that she owes Scottish ministers £58,000 and Fife Council around £60,000 on top of her own expenses of £55,000 for legal fees incurred during her bid to overturn the Fife Structure Plan at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.
She has warned the town faces a ”tsunami” of development which will ruin its historic character.
However, in September the Lord Justice Clerk Lord Gill found Miss Uprichard liable for the substantial costs after throwing out her appeal against the ministers’ decision in May 2009 to approve the Fife Structure Plan 2006-2026. She had claimed that, under the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997, the decision was invalid.
As she launched a website about her case €” savingstandrews.org.uk €”Miss Uprichard confirmed that she had made Scottish legal history by being awarded a Protective Costs Order of £6,000.
”After losing my appeal in the Scottish Court of Session I applied to the UK Supreme Court,” she said. ”My application was accepted and I have now been given a Protective Costs Order of £6,000.
”This means that, if I lose, the other parties can only claim £3,000 each. I am advised by my lawyers that this is probably the first Protective Costs Order to be awarded by the Supreme Court for a Scottish case.
”In contrast, the first two PEOs (Protective Expenses Orders) to be agreed in Scotland were for £40,000 and £30,000.”eeeMiss Uprichard added that the hearing will be in the Supreme Court in London before five judges on March 5 and 6 2013.
”If I lose I will probably have to find at least £50,000 in addition to the balance of the costs of £173,000 awarded against me after the appeal hearing. I already have £5,500 towards this amount.
”I am therefore appealing to everyone who has visited St Andrews, lived here or played golf here to consider contributing to The Challenge Fund, an RBS account (the fund treasurer is Mr A. Alston).
”Now that our structure and local plans have been approved, this is the only way in which it may be possible to prevent a tidal wave of development €” over 1,000 houses, science and business parks, a distributor road, etc €” from overwhelming this small historic town.”
Miss Uprichard said it had been a ”bad year” for access to environmental justice and for the Scottish landscape, with legal challenges to the Hunterston power plant, the Trump proposal in Aberdeenshire and the Aberdeen bypass all being refused, in addition to her case.
She said the huge price of environmental litigation emphasises the ”serious doubts” many people have about democracy in the planning system. Individuals who want to challenge the views of unelected officials risk the imposition of ”ruinous and potentially life-changing costs”.