Cottingham Parish Council v Secretary of State for Local Government & Communities

Costs are assessed by reference to the work reasonably required and the issues for which a party’s attendance was justified. A party may recover costs for a separate issue requiring attendance, particularly in an exceptional case, but the court may reduce excessive or inadequately justified time. The court may also refuse to revisit costs already dealt with in earlier proceedings.

The claimant’s substantive judicial review claim had been unsuccessful. The hearing concerned the appropriate costs payable to the Secretary of State and Corby Borough Council, including whether work connected with an earlier strike-out application could properly be included and whether the claimed hours and sums were reasonable.

1. The claimant was ordered to pay the Secretary of State’s costs.
2. The court accepted that the Secretary of State was entitled to recover costs for dealing with the relevant documents, liaising with the Panel of Inspectors and obtaining statutory declarations. The claimed 19.3 hours for documents was reduced to 15 hours as a broad-brush assessment.
3. The court treated the costs relating to the separate issue as falling within the exceptional category contemplated by Bolton. Attendance was therefore justified, although the court considered that the hearing itself should have been avoided.
4. Costs attributable to the earlier strike-out application were not to be revisited, since that application’s costs had been dealt with by the order disposing of those proceedings.
5. Corby Borough Council’s costs were assessed at £3,250, having regard to the unusual feature that the central allegation was against the council and to the work reasonably required in responding to it.