ast October, I asked a question at a meeting of Lewes District Council. I was interested in what justification the Council had for continuing to oppose a stadium at Falmer and spending council tax payers’ money on making representations at the resumed Public Inquiry that was going to consider alternative stadium sites that were all outside Lewes District.

Councillor Neil Commin, the lead councillor for Planning gave me an answer which included the following sentence – “We have a plan-led system in this country. Local authorities are required to make decisions in line with adopted Local Plan policies, unless material considerations indicate otherwise”.

In other words, Lewes Council’s position was to defend its adopted planning policies and oppose a stadium in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Today at the Inquiry we got a glimpse of what Lewes have spent their money on. Actually, some of it is my money, since I’m a council tax payer in the district.

Their main planning witness, Dereck Wade, spent most of the day giving evidence on behalf of Lewes District Council and answering questions from Jonathan Clay who was representing the football club.

Mr Clay pressed the football club’s case hard. But it must have felt like a struggle. He took Dereck Wade through each of the sites that Lewes considered preferable to Falmer. Toads Hole Valley. Did Mr Wade agree that any development here was contrary to the adopted Local Plan? Yes. Was it in an AONB? Yes. Was development permitted in the new Local Plan? No.

Then how could Lewes District Council support a stadium being built there? Mr Wade responded by telling the Inquiry that there are procedures that allow a local authority to depart from its policies and permit development regardless of the Local Plan.

The same answer applied to Sheepcote Valley. Mr Wade agreed that the City Council’s policies to protect open countryside from development applied to Sheepcote Valley. But there were these same “departure procedures” that might be invoked to set those policies to one side.

Ditto Shoreham Harbour. The football club might even set the ball rolling by putting in a planning application, despite the fact that every known policy body from regional level downwards would advise that there are no policies that would permit a stadium to be built there. If the Albion’s planning application was turned down, there was a right of appeal – to John Prescott – who would listen to a case for using these same departure procedures.

Had we all fallen, Alice-like, into Wonderland, a fantasy world where, because we were outside Lewes, planning procedures were exactly the opposite of what Councillor Neil Commin had said they were? It certainly looked like it.

And what on earth had induced the “plan-led” Lewes District Council to spend my money on a planning consultant who was apparently prepared to ignore just about every policy that had ever been adopted in any Local Plan? Curious, or what?

Dereck Wade’s Wonderland is not like our world. The fact that a potential stadium site would be refused planning permission means that it’s “not available”, surely? Not to Mr Wade, who would only pronounce such a site to be unavailable, after the inevitably lengthy process of submitting a planning application had been turned down.

In the meantime, as long as departure procedures were there, the site – any site, it would seem – was available. And, therefore, John Prescott should turn Falmer down.

Heroically, Jonathan Clay became even more precise in his questioning. Even if the Inspector was to conclude that there was absolutely no chance of an alternative site getting planning permission for a stadium, would the Secretary of State be right to conclude that the site wasn’t available?

No – said Dereck Wade. Why? – asked Mr Clay. And here we got the full absurdity of Lewes District Council’s position – because no-one can come to any conclusions about the suitability of a particular site (other than the fact that it is available, because of departure procedures) without the full detailed information that would only be assembled if a full planning application was submitted.

In other words, whichever way you go, Falmer should be turned down. Because Lewes District Council support a plan-led planning system.

I simply can’t believe that this planning Wonderland makes any sense. All I do know is that thousands of Albion supporters in Lewes District are paying for it.