COUNCIL’S bid to overturn the heritage listing of a Beaudesert saleyard so it can demolish the structure and build a carpark, is heading back to court this week.

The Pre-Callover Review slated for Wednesday and the Callover Review set for Friday should be procedural affairs that lay the groundwork for the real courtroom action of a three-day hearing in November.

But many observing the case of the Beaudesert Pig & Calf Saleyards have learned the hard way to take nothing for granted.

This was the same scenario as in August, when the reviews were supposed to set a hearing in September.

Instead the Scenic Rim Regional Council, which wants to demolish the saleyards, and the Queensland Heritage Council, which wants it to preserve it, were not ready to go to a trial.

This, despite the fact that the fight for the future of the 61-year-old tin and timber structure has been raging on for more than a year-and-a-half.

As neither is willing to discuss details of the case, it remains unclear for now as to whether one or both parties caused the delay in August.

But it was not the first time that a determination on the future of the saleyards was punted down the road.

It was back in January that the Heritage Council backed the advice of the Department of Environment and Science and the wishes of the local people who used and loved the saleyard and added it to the state’s Heritage List.

But in a move that has no precedent in the Department’s working memory, Scenic Rim councillors, with one sole exception, chose not to accept that determination and instead fight it at court.

Months later, council bureaucrats chose not to renew the site’s lease and in doing so consigned the fortnightly auction, and a Helen Street tradition of more than a century, to the history books.