Today’s session at the Inquiry started early, in the hope that it would be the last day that actual evidence was presented. Some hope!

Lewes District Council’s time in the witness box was finished off quite efficiently, with the cross-examination of their transport witness by Mary Macpherson, the lawyer for the City Council. A couple of questions on each of the main topics – accessibility, walking, cycling, public transport, parking control, park and ride, impact on conservation areas – and we were quickly through with Tony Harrison.

The only real mystery was why Lewes had taken the trouble to ask their planning consultant to make a case for Shoreham Harbour and then completely forgotten to instruct their other expert witness to investigate the transport aspects at that site.

When Miss Macpherson had finished, Robert White, the lawyer for Lewes had a few last questions to ask Mr Harrison. But it was obvious that the legal minds were pre-occupied with the fact that they are now preparing the Closing Submissions that will summarise their clients’ cases and persuade the Inspector to reach the right verdict.

Just one more witness to go and those final performances by all the lawyers can start.

So up stepped Joseph Ellis, from Boreham Consulting Engineers Ltd, the transport witness for the owners of Toads Hole Valley. Within two minutes, he dropped a couple of bombshells.

Firstly, he calmly announced that he’d got some new information about the costs of putting a footbridge over King George the Sixth Avenue and a subway underneath it. And then he said that he had some new information about the availability of buses.

All pretty humdrum stuff, we thought. But no. This was entirely new information, that hadn’t been included in the written proofs of evidence that Mr Ellis had previously circulated to the key parties, the Albion and the City Council. And that meant that those key parties hadn’t had the opportunity to consult their own experts and work out whether or not the evidence should be questioned.

Jonathan Clay jumped to his feet to protest. Cost evidence had been considered weeks ago and all the major parties had agreed a common basis for analysing the figures. This new information needed careful scrutiny and witnesses might have to be recalled.

It got worse, though. Only yesterday, Trevor Blaney, the lawyer for Toads Hole Valley’s owners, had promised that there would be no new evidence submitted. And here was his witness doing just that. Mr Blaney tried to clarify what he meant. No new WRITTEN evidence.

What that meant was that Mr Ellis had decided to leave a few vital documents behind, at his office in Essex. He had come to the Inquiry with nothing much more than a few ideas in his head and he was going to tell us what they were. And then it turned out that they weren’t even his ideas. They came from colleagues in the office. And the information about buses was based on nothing more than phone conversations with a couple of people in two bus companies.

This was “quite intolerable”, said Jonathan Clay, “a disgraceful way to treat the Inquiry”. Even the Inspector considered it “regrettable” (which is one of those words that Planning Inspectors use when they are very cross). Mr Ellis was asked to contact his office and see if it might just be possible to get some of the relevant papers faxed down to the Town Hall, so they could be properly considered.

And then we broke for lunch, anticipating a lively afternoon of argument.

That’s exactly what we got. Jonathan Clay took Mr Ellis through the processes by which his evidence had been put together. Despite being engaged by his clients lat November, he had missed the original January deadline for evidence to be exchanged.

He had then waited until after the earlier cost evidence had been presented to the Inquiry before preparing his version of a cost document. Curiously, he seemed to have been working on it on the day that he had been expected to have put in an appearance at the Inquiry, but had cried off because of a family crisis. He couldn’t quite remember the exact sequence of events, but he’d discussed his figures with Mr Blaney some time before yesterday.

The fax messages that had arrived during the lunch break looked a bit odd as well. One of those documents suggested that a bus company would be able to supply extra vehicles, provided they were given the security of a long term contract. Odd that the same bus company had written to the Albion, confirming that they couldn’t commit buses on a regular basis, although they might be willing to consider an occasional hire.

It all looked very fishy. No wonder that Jonathan Clay felt that more work needed to be done to disentangle the Inquiry from the confusion. It remains to be seen whether previous witnesses will have to be recalled. But at least one serious marker was put down. The Albion have asked for time to be set aside at the end of the Inquiry for an application for costs to be awarded against the Toads Hole Valley people.

But when will we see the end of the Inquiry? Mr Ellis will still be in the witness box tomorrow, when we were expecting to hear the Closing Submission of Lewes District Council. But even they have asked for more time, because their case for Toads Hole Valley has been thrown off course by today’s new evidence. Robert White now wants to return in May to deliver his Closing Statement.

And that will mean at least one more extra day will have to be added to the Inquiry. But it also means that Trevor Blaney, the Toads Hole Valley solicitor, won’t be available to present his arguments if an application for costs is made against his clients.

By the end of the day, David Brier, the Inspector was looking very fed up. He brought the proceedings to an end with a weary observation that the discussions would be resumed in the morning.