A Sydney court has agreed to expedite a last-minute bid by a community group to stop the controversial demolition of Allianz Stadium.

Local Democracy Matters has launched legal proceedings in the Land and Environment Court claiming the NSW government botched the approval process ahead of demolition works which were potentially to start this week.

However, Lendlease’s lawyer indicated on Wednesday that hard demolition, as part of the stadium’s $730 million rebuild, was not due to start until late February.

Local Democracy Matters claims that there had been a failure to exhibit the proposal for the required period of time, a failure to consider design excellence and failure to consider remediation of the site before consent was given.

In a letter sent to Infrastructure NSW chief executive Jim Betts on Monday, solicitor James Ryan said the urgent hearing of the matter was sought “given the imminent threat to carry out substantive demolition works”.

Justice Terry Sheahan agreed to expedite the case with a three-day hearing set down starting on February 20.

Both Labor and the Greens oppose the project but Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters on Tuesday she was not worried about the threat of legal action.