Coatham Common, Redcar

Supreme Court To Hand Down Final Ruling On Long-Running Redcar Planning Row

The new Supreme Court of the UK – the highest appeal court in the country – will tomorrow morning announce the final ruling on the appeal by local residents against the refusal of their council to register Coatham Common in Redcar as common land.

The ruling, which will decide whether the residents have won or lost their fight, will be the final stage in the hugely controversial local dispute, which has been rumbling on since 2006 and intensified after Redcar and Cleveland Council gave planning permission for a £55m housing-led development by Persimmon Homes just before the local elections in April 2007.

The ruling follows a hearing in January over which Lord Hope (the Deputy President of the Supreme Court) presided, as to whether Redcar and Cleveland Council acted unlawfully in refusing to register the land as a town or village green, which would have protected it from development forever.

Following that refusal in October 2007, Kevin Lewis, a local resident and supporter of the Friends of Coatham Common, unsuccessfully brought a judicial review in the High Court, and it is the ruling on the final appeal against that decision that will be announced tomorrow.