A campaign group which has launched a legal challenge against a recently-granted scheme for a £6m expansion of a south Pembrokeshire holiday park is appealing for financial support to cover its legal fees.
Back in February, Pembrokeshire planners heard a legal challenge to a granted application for works at Heritage Park, Pleasant Valley/Stepaside had been launched.
The holiday park scheme had previously been backed twice by county planners after a ‘minded to approve’ cooling-off period was invoked as it was against repeated officer recommendations to refuse.
The controversial scheme by Heritage Leisure Development (Wales) Ltd includes the installation of 48 bases for holiday lodges, a spa facility at a former pub, holiday apartments, a café and cycle hire, equestrian stables, a manège and associated office, and associated works.
It is said the scheme, next to the historic remains of the 19th century Stepaside ironworks and colliery, will create 44 jobs.
Officer grounds for refusal, based on the Local Development Plan, included the site being outside a settlement area.
Along with 245 objections to the current scheme, Stepaside & Pleasant Valley Residents’ Group (SPVRG Ltd) – formed to object to an earlier 2019 application – also raised a 38-page objection, with a long list of concerns, describing the current application as “a reincarnation of an earlier application, which first alerted the residents of Stepaside, Pleasant Valley and the surrounding villages of the applicant’s plans to implement a complex and sprawling development which would take over the whole valley”.
The 2019 application – which had been recommended for refusal – was later withdrawn.
Legal challenges have also been mounted in connection with applications on the site.
A legal challenge to try and overturn a council decision to approve three planning applications at Heritage Park was launched in 2021 by the Stepaside and Pleasant Valley Residents Group (SPVRG Ltd), which failed in early 2022.
Following that challenge failure, a question was submitted to full council last year after it was revealed the costs awarded to the council amounted to £10,000, despite the costs being higher.
Members heard that the external legal fees paid totalled £34,000 plus VAT.
In its latest legal challenge, and fundraising appeal, SPVRG Ltd has said: “Permission was granted, even though it was against the recommendation of the planning officers and despite the objections of the three community councils involved, the two local county councillors and 245 residents. It also went against the Local Development Plan.”
It added: “This has been a stark example of a majority of county councillors, first on the planning committee and then in the full council, failing to listen to those who know best - the people who live and work in the area, and their own expert officers.”
Legal fees for the first stage of a judicial review are expected to be at least £14,000, with £1,200 raised to date through SPVRG’s crowdfunding page.
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