NOTWITHSTANDING the Environment Agency's continued purge against residents at Hartford Marina on the River Great Ouse, it was found to have no basis.
It was in April the High Court ruled that the Environment Agency's prosecution of Hartford residents for failure to register their floating homes as vessels had no basis in law.
Defence costs
Whilst the Environment Agency reports that no costs were awarded by the court against it in relation to this matter, considerable defence legal costs were awarded from Central Funds—the public purse, funded by the tax payer.
But how much did the Agency waste on its purge? A Freedom of Information request has shown just how much its folly has cost.
The Environment Agency's internal investigation costs are given as £2,518.39
Plus internal legal costs of £2,866.70 based on an hourly rate of grade of officer.
Plus external barrister costs of £14,620.67
Making a total of £20,005.76 (excluding VAT).
Not the whole story.
The Environmental Agency claims that the failed prosecutions were undertaken 'in the interests of public safety' and the reason for the appeal to the High Court was to gain 'greater clarity' on the law. In the latter, it has of course succeeded, with all three judges unanimous in their decision that the EA was wrong.
The people at Hartford Marina allege that the ‘law' under which these prosecutions were based was not some obscure, historic waterways legislation which the Environment Agency had inherited unwillingly or involuntarily. It was not some ancient statute inappropriate for the 21st century.
Over £1million spent
Rather, it was legislation entirely of the Agency's own making, it is stated. The Environment Agency (Inland Waterways) Order 2010. The Order had taken the EA six years to gain government approval at a cost it is estimated of over a million pounds during that time.
All its new 'law' seems to be is a costly attempt to criminalise innocent people by unlawful application of legislation that they had themselves devised and on which they had frittered away over £1million.
Money that could really have been much better spent.