Richard Buxton has gone into battle over birds, wind farms, Harrier jump jets and the rides at Alton Towers, and campaigners fighting to save Torquay’s seafront Cary Green from development have hired the man ‘who took on the Government – and won’, seeking crowd-funding for his fees to fight plans to build 11 storeys of hotel and flats on the harbourside.
Devonwide news reports:
Cambridge-based environmental and public law specialist Richard Buxton is a solicitor-advocate who has worked independently in environmental law since 1989. He has fought, and won, several important cases in what is known as a ‘Cinderella’ area of the law. He has won cases to protect birds, govern night flying at Heathrow, and has dealt with wind farms, phone masts, road, airport and port proposals. He fought a case against the Ministry of Defence for excessive noise from Harrier aircraft training, and noise from the Alton Towers theme park. In 2013 he was named by Planning magazine as one of the 100 most influential individuals in planning.
Campaigners want to raise £5,000 by crowdfunding online to pay for a judicial review, and to fund Mr Buxton’s services. So far they have raised just under half of the money they need. In February outline planning permission was granted for an 11-storey block of apartments on the harbourside, with a four-to-five-storey hotel linked to the Pavilion building. The Save Cary Green and Torquay Pavilion campaign was set up in response to fight the scheme. The aim of the campaign is now to have a Judicial Review of the decision to grant planning permission.
A spokesman said: ‘As a community campaign, we seek to challenge what we see as a very unsound planning decision. It disregards local and national policies for the Conservation Area; arguably, it fails to economically justify the significant harm that the scheme would cause, and the voices and objections of locals and visitors have been consistently ignored.’
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