Bluestone holiday village plan sees off legal challenge in the Lords

Plans for a holiday village complex is south-west Wales are set to get underway in spring 2006 after what appears to be a final legal defeat for opponents of the £60m project.

The Council for National Parks (CNP) has failed to persuade three Law Lords that the planning implications of the scheme were of sufficient importance to justify a full-scale hearing in the Upper Chamber.

The CNP had argued that the Bluestone development in Pembrokeshire represented a dangerous precedent affecting development on all National Parks in England and Wales.

The scheme was has been given planning approval by both the Pembrokeshire Coastal National Park and the Pembrokeshire County Council. Part of the development is scheduled to be on land inside the boundary of the National Park.

From the outset the CNP opposed the holiday village scheme on the grounds it set a dangerous precedent for development in national parks. It challenged the planning decision at the High Court, Court of Appeal and then the House of Lords.

The three Law Lords refused to allow the case a full hearing after arguing that the CNP's petition failed to "raise an arguable point of general public importance".

In a statement, CNP chairman Kate Ashbrook said: "The Law Lords' decision does not mean that they either supported or objected to the Bluestone development, merely that they declined to look at the legal issues raised in CNP's petition to them."

The statement added: "We remain of the view that a development as large as Bluestone, and that will damage the environment and peace and quiet of the of the National Park, is not appropriate in the National Parks if they are to have a viable future as our most protected and valued landscapes. We are committed to fighting any future major threats to the Parks with the vigour and energy which we used to resist the Bluestone development."

However, the decision of the Law Lords was welcomed by the scheme's developers, who have claimed that the delay caused by the legal battles has put back the project by nearly two years and added £6m to its costs.

Bluestone chief executive William McNamara said: "Bluestone has now passed every legal, democratic and environmental test laid before it by two planning committees, 10 statutory advisors, an independent ombudsman, a High Court judge, three Lord Justices at the Court of Appeal and now three Law Lords."

Both the county council and the National Park authority welcomed the Law Lords' ruling, as did Welsh Secretary Peter Hain.

Visit the Council for National Parks website here.

Visit the Bluestone website here.

Roger Milne

24 November 2005