The officers report to the LAC in February 1999 recommending refusal was obviously highly relevant to the Secretary of State's decision on whether or not to hold a public inquiry, though the committee overturned the recommendations after considerable debate and a number of dissentions. In her witness statement Joyce Bridges said that the Secretary of State based his decision on the formal advice of English Heritage (contained in letters to the Corporation of London on 3 November 1999 and 20 June 2000 and to the Government Office for London on 26 July 2000) and not on EH's internal working papers. However, according to sources at EH this is simply not true and that reports to the LAC and the Commission and the minutes of meetings of these bodies are routinely provided to the Secretary of State when permission is sought to demolish a listed building. This happened recently, for example, in the case of Wembley stadium.

Clearly the report and minutes of February 1999 placed the EH advice, so firmly and consistently reiterated in public, in a very different and more equivocal light. If the Secretary of State was to see these documents, it would be much harder for him to reasonably resist a public inquiry on the basis of EH's advice on the impact of the application on historic buildings, areas and the City skyline.

It was therefore disingenuous of Joyce Bridges to refer selectively in her witness statement to the report to the LAC meeting of 7 June 2000 as evidence that internal documents revealed nothing new about EH views on the Gherkin. This document reiterated the policy agreed so contentiously in February the year before. Bridges makes no reference in her statement to the more important - and damaging - report of February 1999, for obvious reasons.