Having taken the highest level of legal advice, the Vale of White Horse District Council has reluctantly announced it is unable to challenge the appeal decision on the planning application for 160 homes on Drayton Road in Abingdon. The council originally rejected the planning application by developers primarily on the basis that it would cause unacceptable levels of congestion in an area that already struggles with traffic. The developers appealed the decision and in July, a planning inspector overturned the Vale’s decision and approved the application, and included a condition that two new pedestrian crossings must be put in place to alleviate traffic concerns. The district council immediately sought legal advice as to whether it had grounds to take the decision to a judicial review. The legal advice came from two barristers, including Mark Lowe QC who is widely regarded in both the legal and planning professions as one of the leading QCs in the country on planning matters. The legal advice from both barristers made it very clear that there are no grounds on which the council could issue a legal challenge to the inspector’s decision. Cllr Matthew Barber, leader of the Vale of White Horse District Council, said: “Sadly, we’ve exhausted all of our options and it looks like we have no more legal avenues we can follow. It’s enormously frustrating but the only way we could have challenged the decision would have been if the planning inspector’s decision was legally unsound. We are no longer able to challenge on the basis that the development is essentially unsuitable in planning terms. We will now have to rely on the condition imposed by the planning inspector that a satisfactory transport solution must be found and implemented before any house building takes place” “We fought this application throughout and have now obtained expert advice that we have no grounds on which to challenge the decision through the courts. If we had gone ahead, it is extremely unlikely that we could have succeeded - we can't waste tax payers’ money chasing a lost cause.” The six week deadline for anybody to mount a challenge to the appeal decision is Thursday 22 August. This doesn’t mean house building can begin any time soon. The developers cannot proceed with the new housing on Drayton Road until Oxfordshire County Council have confirmed that the highway improvements will take place. Before they can be approved, the county council must first conduct a public consultation in which views of the local community and residents will have to be taken into account. The Vale has published the legal advice it received. You can download it by clicking the following links: Final Advice on Appeal for Vale of White Horse - Mark Lowe QC Advice Drayton Rd Abingdon.