Applicant applying for planning permission for residential development – Applications being refused by different inspectors – Whether inspector failed to give adequate reasons for different approach – High Court finding inspector not bound by previous inspector’s decision
The applicant applied for planning permission for a proposed residential development of land known as Baker’s Field, Station Road, Rainham. The land comprised 2.73 ha (the site), which had been unused for several years. In 1982 an inspector dismissed an appeal against the local planning authority’s refusal to grant permission. The decision was quashed by the High Court and in 1984, as a result of a redetermination, the appeal was again dismissed by another inspector (the 1984 inspector). Subsequently, the applicant submitted a further application for residential development of the site by which time the advice in PPG 3 applied. The application was refused and in 1992 the appeal was dismissed by an inspector (the 1992 inspector). Another application for planning permission for similar proposals on the site was refused by the second respondent, Gillingham Borough Council, and in 1997 an inspector (the 1997 inspector) dismissed the appeal. The applicant appealed to the High Court against the decision of the 1997 inspector. The applicant claimed that the 1992 inspector had recognised the landscape and policy constraints affecting the site and that if a “sufficient reason” could be shown, which included a “a defined need”, the residential development of the site should be approved (the test). The applicant submitted that it had met the test in that a significant shortfall was demonstrated which was worsening and which would not be resolved at a sufficient speed by the process of the next round of the local plan. It was contended therefore that the 1997 decision had been made in defiance of the principles established by the planning history of the site.
Held The application was dismissed.
1. It was clear that the 1997 inspector had been fully aware of the reasoning and conclusions of the 1984 and 1992 inspectors. However, he was not bound by those decisions. He had given clear and adequate reasons why, notwithstanding a clear and worsening housing land shortfall, he was reaching a different view as to the balance to be struck, and he had been entitled to reach the view that the development would seriously conflict with countryside policies which outweighed the housing land shortfall.
2. The 1997 inspector had had regard to PPG 3 as a material consideration by considering the extent of the housing shortfall and to whether and how the local planning authority were proposing to meet it, and he had properly discharged the exercise of balancing housing land considerations against planning objectives.
Keith Londblom QC (instructed by Kingsley Smith & Co, of Chatham) appeared or the applicant; Alice Robinson (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the Secretary of State for the Environment; the second respondents, Gillingham Borough Council, did not appear and were not represented.
