bren2k wrote:
I'm not a lawyer or a planning expert, but I'm involved in plenty of these cases in my professional life; and as I think Slugger (who is a lawyer) has said before, the receipt of legal letters and the prospect of a court case can often serve to focus the minds of everyone involved - we can all sit in our offices and agree with each other that a case has no merit and we're confident we'll win, but that confidence is quickly dissolved when the lawyers start advising - and sending bills.
I'm purely a criminal solicitor, and most of my professional life has been spent as a prosecutor, so I know nothing about planning or administrative law, but the principles are the same: you look at what you want out of a case, and the extent to which you waver from that is all down to how confident you are of winning.
Slightly different in this situation, as there are greater financial implications in losing, but there is an argument that the club/Trust are in the stronger position by having nothing to lose. You're gambling the risk of the club going bust if the case is lost against the certainty of the club going bust if the current deal is accepted. The council, on the other hand, are risking their dealings being exposed along with the potential loss to the council tax payer (although whether they have legal insurance that covers that, I don't know).
The approach from the council might be, or may be an option explained to them, that if they lost and the ground was ordered to be built on the terms as demanded by the Trust (if that is a possible legal outcome) they will have the loss of the commercial rent and non-match day income PLUS the legal fees. Whereas just losing the commercial rent and non-match day income might be the better of the two negative outcomes.