England’s most westerly golf club has won a High Court battle to develop a wedding venue at its remote site on the Cornish coast.
Cape Cornwall Club, situated just north of Land’s End, was granted planning permission in November last year to build general extensions and two new blocks so that the site, which already has a spa, swimming pool and restaurant, can also be used as a wedding venue with accommodation.
According to a ruling handed down this week, the proposal was met with local objections. The council received 58 specific objections over issues such as light pollution, noise and increased traffic movement.
According to the ruling, objectors claimed that weddings would detract from the wild and remote nature of the headland, cause congestion on the road and lead to the introduction of noise and light to the evening and night-time landscape.
The planning officer who wrote a report for the council found the plans were modest, single story and carefully designed to look like barns. The club is set back from the other buildings on the headland and it has run events before.
There was, she found, no need to add restrictive covenants relating to noise that could be dealt with in other ways if it became an issue.
The objectors challenged the decision in the High Court, sitting in Bristol, in June this year. At the hearing, their lawyers argued that Cornwall Council erred in law when it approved the outline planning permission.
Specifically, they said the council didn’t properly take into account its policies and duties relating to Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the Cornish Heritage Coast.
However, in her ruling, judge Mrs Justice Steyn dismissed all their arguments and backed the council.
She found the council’s planning officer properly addressed whether the development complied with the Cornwall Local Plan and AONB issues. She properly considered noise, appearance and traffic, and made no errors in law.
“For the reasons I have given, the claim is dismissed,” she ruled.
James Noble and Helen Tayton-Martin v Cornwall Council and Cape Cornwall Club Ltd
KBD, Administrative Court (Mrs Justice Steyn sitting at Bristol Civil Justice Centre) 28 Sept 2022
