Water’s Edge Appeal - Court Hearing

Mathew Pascall – Counsel appearing on behalf of the appellant
Laura James – Counsel appearing on behalf of SHBC

Mr Pascall and Mrs James discussed the details of dispositions to be presented to the court prior to the hearing in Court 2.

In Court Mr Pascall informed the bench he would be speaking on behalf of both parties in presenting the dispositions for their agreement, however in the case he would be acting on behalf of the applicant and that Mrs James would be representing SHBC. The following are bullet points of the discussions, Mr Pascall stated:

• The appeal would be limited to the license committee’s decision from the 25th February
• The decision for the magistrates was to determine if the licensing committee went too far in their determination
• All information to be submitted to the court would be in place from his client by 24th May
• All information from residents & authority representatives would be in place by 26th June
• An agreement on a ‘bundle of information’ would be reached to be presented to the hearing by 10th July
• An index of the bundle would be produced by 24th July
• The respective parties’ submissions would be swapped 7 days before the hearing for consideration
• It was anticipated the hearing would take 3 days – 2 days in court and one day to visit the Water’s Edge site
• Both parties’ would call a number of witnesses

The location of the hearing was considered with regard to the Water’s Edge location and local knowledge requirements. It was agreed to hold the hearing at Guildford on Friday 26th September (Day 1) and Monday 29th September (Day 2) with a site visit is to be determined for a third day. The judgement factor was agreed to require a District Judge instead of a Lay Bench for the required level of expertise, this is to be confirmed by the clerk of the court to all parties, and an additional few days was considered necessary for the judgement decision.