Penrhos Coastal Park campaign gets judicial review

Campaigners fighting a holiday village being built on a country park will have their case heard as part of a judicial review.

Outline planning permission was granted in 2016 to build 500 holiday cottages at Penrhos Coastal Park near Holyhead.

It would see development on around 200 acres of the park, which was set up for the community in 1971 by the former Anglesey Aluminium plant.

A campaign group said the deadline to begin work has expired.

They have argued that the entire development must be resubmitted for fresh planning consent.

But Anglesey council said the holiday village permission still stands and that enough work has been carried out to meet the deadline.

This week, a court hearing in Cardiff decided the case was worthy of further consideration and it is expected to be heard later in the year.

A spokesperson for Anglesey council said: "Following the hearing on Tuesday, the judge confirmed that the claimant had a case that could be argued on two specific grounds only and that another hearing would be arranged for the High Court later this year to hear arguments on those grounds.

"The judge confirmed that allowing these two grounds to be argued was done by a narrow margin and that he did not wish to give 'false hope' (the judge's words) to the claimant.

"The county council remains confident in its decision-making process and will present this case once again in the High Court."

According to developer Land and Lakes, "an effective start to the development at Penrhos was made in 2021, which means the planning permission for the site is now held in perpetuity".

However, it added that "full-scale development has been paused as we wait for the current challenges in the UK economy to ease".

The company said there are no plans to restrict public access to the Penrhos site.

"We are committed to ensuring that there will be a right of access to 73 acres of trees and paths, and will open another 100 acres near Cae Glas for the public to enjoy," it said.

Having attracted local support, the Save Penrhos campaign group's latest appeal to help fund their legal costs has now topped £22,000.

Hilary Paterson-Jones of the group said: "We're delighted that its progressed to a full judicial review as feelings run very strong in the area that this development can't go ahead.

"We had to prove that they [Land and Lakes] hadn't made a material start and the judge was quite happy that we had a case.

"Ours is a grass roots campaign but the support has been incredible, we've been battling for 14 years now and aren't going to give up now."