YET another public inquiry is looming into a controversial equestrian centre near Tadcaster, following a High Court decision to quash planning permission for the seventh time.

Tadcaster brewery Samuel Smith’s won a victory in its nine-year legal battle against decisions by Selby District Council to grant permission for the Hazelwood Equestrian Centre, at Stutton.

The judge’s ruling against a decision by the planning inspectorate means the future of the 27 metre by 15 metre building, which was built in 1999, must be reconsidered once again by an inspector.

The lengthy wrangle has already cost Selby District Council about £500,000 and a spokesman for the authority said today it had taken note of the court’s decision and would take part in a reconvened inquiry as necessary.

“The court was ruling on a decision made by the planning inspectorate, not the council, but we have obviously been an interested party in the case throughout,” he said.

“We will work alongside the inspectorate as called to do so as part of the new inquiry.”

He said the council believed it would be a “few months” before the inquiry was held.

Kathryn Hutchinson, of the equestrian centre, was not present at Thursday’s hearing, but said after the previous High Court ruling went against her in 2008 that her family’s lives had been destroyed. She said: “We have had ten years of not knowing whether we can stay in business and not knowing whether we can stay on the farm.”

Samuel Smith argued this week in court it was “astonishing” that the inspector in this latest decision had determined the building was “appropriate” in the Green Belt, after ten years of litigation in which the building had been treated throughout as “inappropriate development”, that would require “very special circumstances” to be justified.

The judge ruled the question of whether the building was appropriate was a matter of planning judgment for the inspector. As a result, though he quashed the planning permission, it potentially remains open to a future inspector to decide the case in a similar way.