This wasn’t the easiest of Inquiry sessions to follow. At times, even the lawyers had difficulty. Simple questions never seemed to get simple answers. Some questions got no answers at all. And there were times when questions and answers were flying backwards and forwards and things still made no sense in the public gallery.

The main witness was, once again, Joseph Ellis, transport consultant acting on behalf of the owners of Toads Hole Valley. He’d already rubbed the Albion’s representatives up the wrong way, by bringing up contentious evidence without notice. That had sparked a row that had disrupted the Inquiry timetable.

Jonathan Clay’s cross-examination of Mr Ellis resumed. But it got off to a bad start, with the Albion’s lawyer unable to get a straightforward answer to the question of how many parking spaces were needed at Toads Hole Valley. Was Mr Ellis making a case for 1,467 spaces, as his original written evidence had suggested? It seemed not. Was it 700, as his supplementary evidence suggested, prepared after he’d seen a letter from the Highways Agency who were worried about traffic queuing back on to the A27? Again, it seemed not.

Mr Ellis read from his written evidence. Mary Macpherson, for the City Council, complained that he was reading too fast. Mr Clay asked for a straight answer. The Inspector intervened, explaining that he “found it very difficult to follow the witness’s line of response”. Eventually, it turned out that there might be 1,467 parking spaces, but only 700 of them would be available for a weekday evening match. So that was the answer? No. It was an option, and further study might be necessary. “I don’t want to mislead the Inquiry by giving a commitment to a definite number”.

The problem did seem to be the Highways Agency. Their letter had said that 1,467 parking spaces so close to the road junction off the A27 would lead to “insuperable traffic problems”. Mr Ellis seemed to think that not letting cars into the car park when the trunk road was busy might prevent the junction getting clogged up.

“Was this all about safety?” asked Mr Clay. “I’d prefer to use the term hazard” came the reply. Was there a difference? “Crossing the road is a hazard, crossing a busy road raises questions of safety”, said Mr Ellis, helpfully. Or confusingly – take your pick.

And then we settled back to listen to a lot of stuff about RFC values and design standards for road junctions, which nobody seemed to understand. “Ratio of Flow to Capacity”, since you ask. Now do you understand? I thought not. I don’t think anyone did. At least not the way that Mr Ellis explained.

It all ended up with Mr Clay suggesting that, if he thought there would be a problem with queues on the A27, maybe Mr Ellis should be looking for a solution. “Not at this stage”, said Mr Ellis. He preferred to wait for a planning application for a stadium to be made, and then there would be a comprehensive Transport Assessment, and then the Highways Agency might even decide that there wasn’t the problem that they thought there was.

“I think the Inspector will have to decide what weight to give to your evidence”, said Mr Clay, dryly.

Indeed. Things then got even more removed from common sense, when the discussion moved on to the subject of on-street parking controls. With only 700 cars allowed into the stadium car park, there would obviously be a problem with parking in the neighbouring residential streets. All the other transport experts had recognised that there would be a need for a Controlled Parking Zone. Mr Ellis was asked how big he thought that CPZ should be.

His answer amazed everyone. “CPZs are not there to stop people parking outside someone else’s house”. Eh? What are they for, then? Safety, apparently. Or was it hazards? I was too confused to follow the argument. It seemed that parking was another problem that Mr Ellis couldn’t solve.

Except that when Mary Macpherson asked questions on behalf of the City Council, he did come up with a few ideas, like developing new park and ride sites. Hangleton Bottom, or Green Ridge (off Mill Road and likely to be in the new National Park, meaning another Public Inquiry just about that), or Sussex University (already ruled out as a football car park by the City Council, unless it’s to serve a new stadium at Falmer).

All completely unrealistic. Toads Hole Valley is looking a very unlikely prospect for an Albion Stadium.

And that’s the end of the evidence gathering at this Inquiry. All that is left are the Closing Submissions by the major parties. Thanks to Mr Ellis taking the best part of two whole days not to come up with any solutions to transport problems, it is now certain that the Inquiry will need at least two days in May before it’s completed. Look forward to Thursday 5 May being the last day.

And finally … At the end of today’s session, both the Albion and the City Council indicated that they would be pursuing claims against the Toads Hole Valley people for costs, following all the shenanigans over the past few weeks. Exactly how this will shake out is still uncertain, all the more so since Trevor Blaney, the THV solicitor has said that he can’t be there to respond to those claims. He wasn’t at all happy when the Inspector told him that there were no powers to force the parties to provide him with advance details of their claims, to allow him to brief a substitute.

Mr Blaney sounded very aggrieved as he complained about this. “It is not in the interests of any party to this Inquiry for procedural irregularities to occur”.

Perhaps your people should have thought about that a bit earlier, Mr Blaney.