Does anybody know who and how to apply for a cost protection order for a judicial review case?

[duchesse]

Am Parish councillor in a parish seeking to obtain judicial review of a planning application by a developer that was granted in the most iniquitous possible way. A group of nearby residents is campaigning against the decision and leading planning case barrister is involved and has offered his services pro bono and stated that the case has in his view an 80% chance of success. The chair of the residents' association has asked the PC to apply on their behalf for a cost protection order to cap legal fees and we are trying to find out what that means. I've tried googling but can't seem to find the right information- How and Who can apply? The parish clerk is understandably a bit at sea with legal matters.

Does any clever person out there have any pointers or websites that we can get that information from?

bump

This is a Protective Costs Order (PCO). You generally apply as part of the claim for Judicial Review (because the merit or otherwise of the claim is a critical factor in the case for the PCO), although the case for the PCO is heard before the JR proceeds of course.

This claim really needs to be prepared by a solicitor: your friendly barrister may be able to introduce a firm, or there may be a local link that will influence some pro bono work from a solicitor too.

The solicitor will also advise on what party should bring the claim for JR: I wouldn't imagine that it would be appropriate for a Parish Council to do that.

Thank you very much both! It's the residents' group that wants to apply for JR but their chair came to PC meeting on Monday (he's newly co-opted onto the PC anyway) and said that their barrister had said that a PCO would be better coming from a body like the Parish Council. None of us knows anything about it so we're trying to find out before next month's meeting. We need to find out what the implications are for the parish council and whether it is actually possible for us to apply on behalf of the residents, and if so, how to apply. Our clerk is going to ask the Devon association of local councils for advice I think.

We just feel slightly at sea, having fought as much as we could to ensure due process before the planning permission was granted and now discover that we can still fight it. It has galvanised the residents. They want a PCO limiting costs to £5000 (which they are planning on clubbing together to pay for).

babybarrister- so a local tramp maybe?