A Northern Ireland council has spent almost £700,000 of ratepayers’ money on judicial reviews in the last two years.
In total, Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council’s (LCCC) legal costs in the financial year 2022/23 were £728,105.41 compared to £610,073.67 in 2021/2022.
The money was paid to 11 different legal firms with details provided to the Local Democracy Service in a freedom of information (FoI) request.
Read more: Lisburn and Castlereagh council has 17 planning approvals quashed after legal challenge.
The highest amount paid out in legal costs by LCCC to a single company was to the Belfast firm Cleaver Fulton Rankin with a total of £558,166.19 in 2022/2023.
This was broken down into two separate payment of ‘standard legal costs’ of £210,337.97 and legal costs associated with judicial review that totalled £347.828.22.
In 2021/22 the council paid the same firm £340,322.96 for legal costs associated with judicial reviews and £165,779.05 on standard legal costs. The £506,112,01 total was just over £52,000 less than the 2022/2023 total.
Some of the money spent on JRs involved the Council overturning its own decisions.
In 2022, the local authority asked the High Court to overturn its own decisions made between August and October 2021 for proposed developments in the countryside.
It sought the judicial review on the grounds that it had not taken account of a Stormont department’s fresh guidance on rural planning applications.
The request followed the council receiving pre-action correspondence relating to most of the applications from an environmental campaigner.
The campaigner had argued the approvals breached planning policy for countryside development across a wider range of areas that merited judicial examination.
The council also confirmed that a solicitor from Cleaver Fulton Rankin attends all planning committee meetings in chambers.
However, the local authority would not detail how much legal advisers are paid for attending meetings, stating that the information was “exempt from disclosure due to potential prejudice of commercial interests”.
Though it was shown that the solicitor attending the planning committee would be paid at “an hourly rate specified in the contract”.
It was also highlighted in the FoI that payments listed were made to the suppliers in the financial years 2021/2022 and 2022/2023, not automatically accounted for in those years as work may have been completed in previous years.
There have been some high profile review of planning decisions at LCCC.
In 2021, a planning approval at the centre of a watchdog probe against DUP minister Edwin Poots’ son was quashed.
Former LCCC councillor Luke Poots was chair of the planning committee when it approved the application for which his father had lobbied in favour.
Permission was granted for the two houses outside Hillsborough in 2017 despite planning officers recommending refusal.
Residents launched legal proceedings and the approval was overturned last June after the council eventually conceded.
The case cost the council around £62,500. The planning application forms part of a council standards watchdog probe against Luke Poots investigating an alleged conflicts of interest. It is understood the probe is ongoing.
He has previously insisted he had “done everything by the book”.
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