Environmental campaigners say they are outraged a tenacious St Andrews campaigner faces a legal bill of at least £173,000.
Penny Uprichard has lost her David against Goliath battle to protect her beloved home town from what she describes as a “tsunami” of development.
Now support has come from Friends of the Earth, who believe it is wrong she faces such a financial handicap for daring to go to court to stand up for the environment.
The veteran campaigner had her case heard by the UK Supreme Court in London at the start of March.
She previously failed twice to convince Scottish judges in the Court of Session in Edinburgh they should stop Scottish Government-approved plans to allow builders to increase the size of St Andrews by up to one quarter.
Now, five Supreme Court Law Lords have unanimously dismissed Miss Uprichard’s legal challenge against proposals for a minimum of 1,000 houses, a business and science park and a distributor road on the western edge of the town.
The proposal was previously granted permission as part of Fife Council’s 20-year plan.
The hard-hitting judgment on Wednesday stated the case was “not an appropriate use of the time of this court”.
However, Mary Church, environmental justice campaigner at Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: “No one should have to face such excessive costs for going to court to stand up for the environment.
“Scotland is bound under international law to ensure that people can hold governments and public authorities to account in court over decisions that impact on the environment and that legal action is affordable. By no stretch of the imagination is £173,000 affordable.”
The European Commission is taking the UK to court over its failure to provide access to justice in environmental cases, particularly in relation to the excessively high cost of legal action.
While Fife Council and the Scottish Government have welcomed the failure of Miss Uprichard’s legal challenge, Miss Uprichard herself remains resolute.
She says the decision means St Andrews and its landscape are now likely to be “overwhelmed” by development, with the “views of unelected officials taking precedence over those of residents”.
Miss Uprichard added the only positive note she can take out of this is that at least the uncertainty of the last four years is over.
She believes Scotland’s planning system has become “almost totalitarian” where, she says, there is little opportunity to question, much less oppose, proposals by officials at all levels.
She said that to be unable to challenge decisions, except by risking enormous amounts of money, is “not democracy”.