Considering they have yet to put in an appearance at the Inquiry, the owners of Toads Hole Valley have managed to exert quite an influence on how it has proceeded. They started by failing to respond to invitations to meet the football club. They submitted their main proof of evidence at the very last minute. They contrived to book their representatives in to make their case on the last two days available in March, thereby ensuring that the closing submissions will have to be delayed by five weeks. And they’ve turned down requests for informal meetings since the Inquiry started.

On Thursday morning, they caused another kerfuffle by presenting the Inspector with a document that claims to rebut key transport evidence that was on the point of being agreed by all of the expert witnesses, from the Club, the City Council and Lewes District Council.

This didn’t go down well. The Albion’s transport witness will have to be recalled. The City Council’s witness had to ask for time to consider the new document before he began giving his own evidence. And the Inquiry could be prolonged.

It meant that we were all given a two hour lunch break The Inspector used part of that time to draft a letter to Toads Hole Valley’s representatives ‘expressing concern’. Since Mr Brier gives every impression of being a calm and reflective man, that sounds like it could be him getting very severe.

The first part of the morning was given over to the conclusion of the questioning of Nigel Green, the City Council’s planning expert. Charlie Hopkins, for Falmer Parish Council, floated the idea that the Albion’s temporary stay at Withdean was not causing the Club any difficulty in flourishing. Hazel McKay, for the Regency Society, followed this up with her now regular suggestion that the Club might stay there even longer, pending Shoreham Harbour becoming available.

Mr Green reminded everyone that Withdean was not only unacceptable to the football club, but it was hardly popular with local residents or the athletics clubs either. ‘Hadn’t the Council been the architect of all these problems?’ asked Ms McKay. Mr Green’s response was to recall that Messrs Archer and Bellotti had played a rather bigger role.

There was more about Shoreham Harbour from Ms McKay. If the road access could be funded by the government, wouldn’t this open the way to the Albion building a stadium there? No, said Mr Green. Shoreham Harbour’s redevelopment is not an important enough issue for the government. He later expanded on this when the Inspector asked his questions. The redevelopment project was stalled. The South East England Regional Development Agency and all the other parties were very concerned. But the funding gap looked just too big.

It really isn’t going to happen, Hazel.

After our long lunch break, Mike Mogridge, Director of Colin Buchanan and Partners, the City Council’s transport consultants, was ready to give his evidence. He’d been involved in advising on transport issues for the new Wembley Stadium and the proposed Olympic Stadium in East London, so he came with a good pedigree.

He took us carefully through his thinking about transport. He had made predictions of how people would get to matches, based upon real information about where a sample of real supporters – season ticket holders – actually lived. He explained why this was a better way of doing it than relying on forecasts based on general population patterns, the way that other transport consultants worked.

He provided evidence that made realistic assumptions about walking and cycling. Most people won’t walk much more than twenty or thirty minutes. And very few people cycle to football matches. If you wanted to rely on sustainable transport, the quality of the bus and train networks would be critical. Since Brighton Station wasn’t available for a stadium, the best bet was Falmer, with Sheepcote Valley second. No surprise there, then.

Mr Mogridge’s approach enabled him to deliver some detailed estimates of the number of cars that were likely to be left looking for opportunities to park on-street around all of the potential stadium sites. Falmer was the only site where there wouldn’t be a problem, provided enough well managed car parks and park and ride schemes were available. And that is exactly what the Albion are planning.

Of course there were questions. That’s why Falmer Parish Council and Lewes District Council are employing lawyers. Mr Hopkins had first go. All he succeeded in doing was getting Mr Mogridge to admit that he might have underestimated the number of people who would travel on the trains to Falmer.

The only point at which I began to worry was when Mr Mogridge mused that it was all very well worrying about sustainable transport for travel to football matches, which occupy a stadium just 25 times a year, when society at large seems unconcerned about achieving sustainable transport access to work places that are open every day. This may be true, but is it helpful? Let’s just hope that John Prescott doesn’t decide that sustainable transport isn’t, after all, that important a factor in deciding where a stadium should be put.

If he ends up with that conclusion, an awful lot of time and money will have been wasted at this Inquiry, by the Albion, the local authorities … and even the owners of Toads Hole Valley.