\n<\/p>\n
A council\u2019s decision to allow Tottenham Hotspur Football Club to build a new training facility in a park in north London has been quashed by a judge at the high court.<\/p>\n
The campaign group Guardians of Whitewebbs told a hearing in June that Enfield council\u2019s decision to grant planning permission for a new women\u2019s and girls\u2019 football academy on 6.5 hectares (16 acres) of land in Whitewebbs Park was unlawful.<\/p>\n
The group\u2019s lawyers told the hearing in London that the council breached the rules when making its decision, as councillors were not provided with all relevant information regarding the development\u2019s environmental impact, meaning they were \u201cmaterially misled\u201d.<\/p>\n
Campaigners also claimed there was a \u201creal possibility of bias\u201d in the decision as Spurs had \u201cunparalleled access\u201d to senior council figures at the time of the application.<\/p>\n
Enfield council, which was Labour-controlled at the time but is now run by a Conservative minority administration, withdrew its defence to the claim last month.<\/p>\n
But Spurs continued to oppose the challenge, claiming it should be dismissed as the result \u201cwould inevitably have been the same\u201d had the information been provided.<\/p>\n
The club also said the allegations of bias were \u201ccompletely overblown\u201d.<\/p>\n
In a ruling on Monday, Sir Tim Kerr, sitting as a high court judge, quashed the decision to approve the plans, finding the result \u201ccould well have been different\u201d had all the relevant information about the scheme been available.<\/p>\n
He dismissed claims concerning potential bias, describing the group\u2019s arguments as \u201cweak\u201d and stating that \u201ccordial relations\u201d between the council and the club were \u201cnormal given the overlapping functions and interests\u201d.<\/p>\n
Spurs agreed a 25-year lease for the site in 2023 \u2013 a decision that was unsuccessfully challenged at the high court in 2024 \u2013 and the council resolved to approve the planning application in February last year.<\/p>\n
The plans would have seen the construction of 10 football pitches and other work on the park, which is near the club\u2019s men\u2019s training facilities.<\/p>\n
Jenny Wigley KC, representing Guardians of Whitewebbs, said in written submissions that the ecologist Giles Sutton had carried out a report into the environmental benefits of the plans in November 2024.<\/p>\n
Sutton told the council that while he did not oppose the scheme \u201cas such\u201d, it was \u201ccounterintuitive\u201d to accept the club\u2019s claims that the site would benefit the local environment as about 40% of the park would be lost.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my opinion, if the council were to accept this, their decision could be easily challenged,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
But Wigley said council officers had said in a planning report for councillors that there was \u201cno objection to the proposed development\u201d, despite Sutton telling the authority that this did not reflect his advice.<\/p>\n
She continued that Sutton\u2019s report \u201cclearly informed the planning officers\u2019 views\u201d on the environmental impact of the scheme and should have been presented as a \u201cbackground document\u201d, meaning members of the public could have inspected it.<\/p>\n
Wigley said: \u201c[The law] does not permit this kind of salami slicing, where a planning officer can disclose parts of a report they agree with but can avoid public scrutiny of the parts of the report they do not agree with.\u201d<\/p>\n
James Maurici KC, representing Spurs, said Sutton\u2019s views were \u201cno more than an assertion\u201d and that Guardians of Whitewebbs had \u201cfailed to provide any evidence\u201d that it had been prejudiced by the council\u2019s failure to provide the document.<\/p>\n
He continued: \u201cIt is highly likely, indeed inevitable, given the absence of any evidence of prejudice, that the outcome for the claimant would not have been substantially different if the conduct complained of had not occurred.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Kerr said the council\u2019s noncompliance with rules was \u201cserious\u201d and that councillors were \u201cmaterially misled\u201d by the exclusion of Sutton\u2019s report.<\/p>\n
Alessandro Georgiou, the Conservative leader of Enfield council since May 2026, said the authority was delighted with the decision and that it withdrew its defence as it would \u201cnot have been in the best interests of residents across the borough\u201d.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cWe said we would protect Whitewebbs Park from this unacceptable proposal and we will now move forward with plans that reflect the needs of the local community and also preserve and protect this important area of Enfield.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A council\u2019s decision to allow Tottenham Hotspur Football Club to build a new training facility in a park in north London has been quashed by a judge at the high court. The campaign group Guardians of Whitewebbs told a hearing in June that Enfield council\u2019s decision to grant planning permission for a new women\u2019s and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[3042,160,221,949,9254,1661,121,480,9133,9119,910],"class_list":{"0":"post-51447","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-blocked","9":"tag-court","10":"tag-facility","11":"tag-high","12":"tag-hotspur","13":"tag-london","14":"tag-park","15":"tag-plans","16":"tag-spurs","17":"tag-tottenham","18":"tag-training"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}