18/04/2025

Message from DOPOC Chair Eleni Chalmers

Dear DOPOC friends,

On Tuesday we received Brent’s legal response to the legal letter we sent on 4th April. 

While they responded in detail to our points, they rejected our challenge and our demand to reverse the decision made on March 7th to the current PSPO. They reiterated they had met the legal requirements of a PSPO stating that “the council has the power to make the variation, and has complied with all the requirements imposed in order to make the variation”. 

We knew that overturning a PSPO would be challenging because they are specifically designed to give councils almost unfettered power. However we wanted to ensure that our community was taken seriously as well as exploring our chances of success in a judicial review - and its cost implications. 

Our lawyers advised that the chances of overturning the PSPO variation in a judicial review were low,  at 35%, and the costs would be c£100k (with no guarantee of reimbursement even if we won). So we opted to use our legal advice to send a muscular letter to ensure our points and the legal flaws in the PSPO were detailed. 

We will now be writing back to them (not via our solicitors) and our focus will be to influence any consultation for the next PSPO. 

It may not feel like much of a victory but Brent have undertaken to consult again on the next PSPO to be in place in Februray 2026, which we hope will be more impartial; to consider meeting us this time; and to let us know when it goes live.  

We also hope that this may add more weight to our involvement in a POC Liaison Committee along with FOPOC. 

We would like to thank all of you for your support and contributions. There are no guarantees but we have certainly made our presence felt and we are no longer so easily ‘ignorable’.

On the financial side, we do not think it is wise to pursue further legal action at this stage. We have paid the bulk of the legal fees but we do need a further £3000 (which includes promised donations via private donations). The Committee members have contributed as much as they can to the total legal bill (of £12k) but we do still have a shortfall which is currently being carried by one of us.  

Would you be willing to help a bit more for one final push? We would really appreciate it.  Even small sums will mount up and help to cover this cost. Please do what you can to support us via this link: https://gofund.me/f8f7510b