Today’s events!
For anyone looking at the documents on the web site who wasn’t able to attend the first day, when it was explained to us, the Rule 6 party is us (our Barrister and some committee members). NRS is the Appellant (they are appealing) and the WCC Planners are the defendants (who rejected it last May). Took me a while to get my head round it! As I understand it, WCC are only defending ONE of the reasons they gave at Planning for rejection. We are called the Rule 6 party because our team have been given Rule 6 status (don’t really know what that is) but it means our team can cross examine the Appellants team and defend all the reasons for rejecting. I’m sure someone might correct me but that’s my limited understanding!
This morning: Restoration/Landscape/Greenbelt (I missed first bit).
We gave our submission – NRS gave theirs
WCC aggressively (very) cross examined NRS and challenged (inspector had to calm things down!)
Rule 6 (us) then cross examined – I felt we held our corner very well
This afternoon: Highways traffic and stuff
Rule 6 Bill Houle did a brilliant job – NRS then did their bit and challenged our arguments
We cross examined – again I think we did very well
Local Economy/jobs etc.
I had to leave half way through Mike Lord’s (rule 6) submission but he was awesome and in the process of completely destroying NRS submissions and blowing them out of the water!
Gutted I had to leave so don’t know what happened when they did their bit and cross examined.
Bek Hatch (rule 6) was due to speak after about Equestrian/horse riding routes etc.
All in all I feel it is going extremely well. The Inspector is very good, extremely fair.
NOTE This is just my take on this, I don’t have a legal brain nor am I an expert but I feel very confident that we are holding our own against the big boys! – Kaz Anderson

Just a quick update. Rebecca Hatch (our PR lady) had a good sparring session the the NRS Barrister this afternoon.
In short he implied she was fabricating things & called her out.
The WCC Barrister, Planning Officer & our Barrister did a hasty dig into other WCC / NRS research & found that a reply to the BHS that NRS claimed had been sent, actually had NOT… so Bek’s point re dangerous re-routing of the Bridleway stands.
Mike also made a huge hole in their economic argument & Matt excelled on the amenities front.
Overall a very good day. Tim is up tomorrow with planning. He knows his stuff, so I think blood may be spilt in the colosseum… – Adrian Carloss