Albion fans who are following the long saga of the Club’s quest for a permanent home must by now know more about town planning than they ever thought it possible to learn. Other football supporters can show off by naming every cup winning team since 1950. We impress our mates by explaining the intricacies of government planning policy on major developments in AONBs.

Wednesday at the Inquiry was a day for the real aficianados. We had two expert planning witnesses doing battle on behalf of the football club and the city council, presenting all of the planning policy reasons why Falmer is the only site, and fighting off the opposition who say it’s not.

The cross-examination of Peter Rainier, representing the Albion, was concluded at lunchtime and the afternoon was taken up with the evidence presented by Nigel Green, the city council’s man, and the start of his grilling by the lawyers for Lewes District Council and Falmer Parish Council.

Before things really got going, though, there was a letter handed round the Inquiry which proved categorically that the New Monks Farm site, next to Shoreham Airport, isn’t available for a football stadium. It was from the company that owns the site. Odd, then, that Tom Carr, Falmer Parish Council’s vice chairman, had said only a few days ago that the company was willing to sell the site to the Albion. Wrong, Mr Carr. They are building a golf course and won’t sell.

That was a nice victory to start the day. It set everyone up for the combative questioning of Peter Rainier by Falmer’s lawyer. Like Mr Carr, he was doing his best. But Charlie Hopkins wasn’t very convincing. He tried to prove that Shoreham Harbour would be available, but got no further than casting doubt on whether the harbour really was the home of the black redstart. Or is it the red blackstart?

He even persisted with the Airport site. Does West Sussex County Council’s policy on aviation actually say that a stadium can’t be built near the airport? No. But neither does it say that it can. I think most people in the room assumed that it had never crossed the minds of the aviation policy makers in Chichester that this question might ever be asked. But there was Mr Hopkins, no doubt prompted by Tom Carr, asking it.

The questions about Adur and Horsham Councils’ policies for Upper Beeding Cement Works were just as unreal. And then we moved on to a debate about whether 450 students who would move into a flats near Falmer Station counted as ‘local residents’ who would be disturbed by the noise of a football match in the same way as (allegedly) will the occupants of two houses on the outskirts of Falmer village. It turns out that the students will have double glazing to dampen the much greater noise of the A27 which will be much closer to their windows that the stadium.

The Regency Society’s Hazel McKay brought up her grand plan again - stay at Withdean until a move to Shoreham Harbour can be arranged in twenty years time. Could Withdean be expanded to hold 14,000 while we waited? Er, no. The Club didn’t want a 14,000 seater stadium. Even John Prescott wasn’t interested in that option. And what would we do with Withdean when we moved? ‘Sell it on e-bay’, suggested Jonathan Clay, the Albion’s lawyer.

After Peter Rainier stepped down, it was Nigel Green’s turn. He gave a very clear presentation of the City Council’s case, which is to continue to support the Falmer project.

Mr Green had some particularly interesting things to say about Sheepcote Valley. Apart from the traffic issues (more on those tomorrow), he spelled out a range of other policy objections to Sheepcote Valley. The site was an important public open space. The council has policies to protect ‘strategic views and important vistas’. The existing playing fields and @@@@@@@ park would need to be relocated, and moving them to contaminated land at the north of the valley would be risky and irresponsible. Going through the whole process of preparing for a stadium at Sheepcote Valley could take six years and another Public Inquiry couldn’t be ruled out. As owner of the site, the City Council did not want to release the land. Falmer was a far better option.

Mr Green took us through all of the alternative sites in the city, carefully explaining the complex range of planning policies that applied to each of them. We’d already heard many of the reasons why particular sites weren’t suitable. Now we heard yet more.

And if anyone thought that Toads Hole Valley looked like a good idea because the site could be shared with office development, they were soon to be disabused of that. Nigel Green explained that most recent office developments in the city were losing money that developers could only make up with profitable retail or housing schemes built alongside them. If the future of Toads Hole Valley was office development (as the owners seem to want), I guess there wouldn’t be room for a stadium.

At the start of the day, we thought we knew a lot about planning. By the end, we knew much more.