AT least another £5,000 will be needed to settle the dispute between St Ann’s Well café tenant John Redman and the Malvern Hills Conservators.

The conservators’ inquiry committee will request the full board grant the initial amount to cover the next stage of proceedings.

To date the dispute has racked up a legal bill of £120,000, covering the costs of both Mr Redman and the conservators.

The latest budget will help to pay for secretarial work to catalogue all the documentation involved in the case, as well as any legal advice required from London law firm Kingsley Napley.

The next moves will also include writing to former and current members of the board, Mr Redman, and other interested parties inviting them to submit all their written evidence for consideration. Oral submissions may then be sought if necessary.

Chairman Carl Attwood, who is joined in the committee by Luna Deller and Jill Campbell, said: “It is in our own interest to be prudent and sensible. We need to do everything to keep our costs to a minimum.

“Given the money that has been spent on getting this inquiry committee to where it is, it’s not unreasonable a small amount more should be spent. If this is going to be taken seriously we need to pay the proper costs that will be accrued.”

Plans were also made for a section of the conservators’ website to be dedicated to the inquiry so members of the public will have easy access to all of the information.

The dispute dates back to September 2009 when Mr Redman was informed his lease on the café would not be renewed by the conservators when it expired in March 2010.

A new lease was finally agreed between the two parties in May 2011 following a series of protests, petitions, mediation sessions and negotiations.

However both Mr Redman and the then Conservators chairman Clive Smith agreed that there should be a thorough investigation to establish the truth of what exactly took place during the costly affair.

Mr Smith said the inquiry should be “open and transparent to ensure that such a situation will never be repeated”.

No date was set for the committee’s next meeting.