In September this year SAVE decided to go to the High Court to lodge an application to seek judicial review of John Prescott's decision not to hold a public inquiry into the fate of the Baltic Exchange. You may have read about this case - the building proposed to replace the Baltic is Norman Foster's so called "Gherkin", a 180 metre high tower for reinsurers Swiss Re.

The Grade II* listed Baltic Exchange contained one of the finest City interiors of the Victorian and Edwardian era - a grand and lavish domed Exchange Hall richly endowed with marbles, mahogany and stained glass. The last trading floor to survive, it was badly damaged by an IRA bomb in 1992 and parts of the building were dismantled. English Heritage and the City Corporation insisted that any redevelopment of the site would require the restoration of the Hall and the principle St Mary Axe facade and the Baltic Exchange, considering the cost of this beyond its resources, sold the site to Trafalgar House in 1995.

The new owners were subsequently granted planning permission for an office scheme incorporating the restored 1903 building.

The saga's pivotal event occurred in 1996 when English Heritage reversed its earlier position and agreed in principle not to insist on the reinstatement of the Hall and St Mary Axe facade. This decision was made on the basis that detailed examination of the fabric during dismantling had revealed that far more was beyond repair than had been previously realised. EH also concluded that any acceptable replacement building would have to be of high architectural quality and of less bulk than the 1995 scheme.

In 1996 Trafalgar submitted applications for Norman Foster's Millennium Tower (subsequently withdrawn). Then in 1997 conditional sale to reinsurers Swiss Re was announced and, finally, applications for the current Foster tower were submitted last year. Neither the Millennium Tower nor the Gherkin schemes included the re-erection of the Baltic Exchange.

When the City resolved to approve the Swiss Re applications this summer, SAVE joined the Baltic Exchange and the Victorian Society in asking the Secretary of State to call the application for consideration at a public inquiry. He decided not to do this despite the fact that the case clearly meets at least three of his own five call in criteria.

That is:

• it conflicts with national polices (on historic buildings) .
• it has a significant impact beyond its immediate neighbourhood (the proposed tower would be the third highest building in London).
• it raises significant architectural and urban design issues.

This was the basis of our legal challenge. Our counsel argued that in the absence of any other reasons, the Secretary of State's decision not to call in the application was not rational.

Thanks to the generosity of a number of individual supporters and the Baltic Exchange itself, which has fought heroically against the proposals for years, we established a fighting fund to meet our legal costs.