Campaigners battling to block the auction of prestigious council-owned Chinese dynasty artworks worth £14m have abandoned plans to take legal action to halt the sale this month.

Plans to sell-off of the 24 most valuable items of the Riesco collection looked set to be put on ice after residents, local artists and Labour councillors lodged an appeal for a judicial review with the High Court.

But opponents of the sale yesterday admitted defeat after accepting they were unlikely to raise the tens of thousands of pounds necessary to fight the sale in court.

Croydon Council can now proceed with the auction in Hong Kong on November 27.

Campaigners had planned to base their case on leaked documents in which the council admitted the sale would breach its own policy because the money raised - expected to be between £9m and £14.2m - will not be spent on its existing collections.

If senior judges had ruled in their favour, the court could have compelled the council to pay compensation or scrap the auction.

But Charlotte Davies, who had been fronting the judicial review bid, said the group's legal bill would have been far more than the £20,000 it initially believed it needed.

She said: "It is the speed which is the problem. I think we could have pulled the money in, but there was only a three-week window to bring in £20,000 and then you've got to be pretty confident you can then leverage up to £60,000 to £70,000.

"You have got to ask about democracy in a country in which it is so difficult for people to get transparent decision-making.

She added: "The idea of a judicial review is that it supposed to allow ordinary, hard-working, tax-paying residents to seek the intervention of a judge when they believe that their local authority has behaved wrongly.

"But while Croydon Council was able to use its full-time staff and legal team, all paid from our council tax, and to call on its massive resources, again paid for by local residents, our group of volunteers and arts enthusiasts had to work in our spare time to gather the documents and evidence and to raise funds to pay for the legal challenge.

"This sale is exactly the same as rioting but they are doing it behind closed doors and they're in suits."

The £15,000 already raised by the group will be used to pay existing legal costs.

Croydon Council said it had planned to "robustly oppose" the judicial review application.

A spokesman added: "As we have stated all along, we are acting in exceptional circumstances for the benefit of Croydon's cultural future."

The 230-piece Riesco collection includes ninth-century tomb models and valuable Ming china, bought by the council upon the death of local collector Raymond Riesco in 1964.

Councillors have repeatedly insisted the auction is essential to fund the refurbishment of Fairfield Halls.

But the sale has been widely criticised by cultural organisations - including the Museums Association, Arts Council England and Heritage Lottery Fund - which have accused the "unethical" council of undermining trust in museums.

 

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