St Pauls Development Ltd succeeded today in overturning a refusal of planning consent for the development of the former National Power-owned Stella South power station at Blaydon.
Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council refused consent for housing on the brownfield site five miles west of Gateshead town centre in 1995, instead allocating it for employment use only. In doing so, they went contrary to the recommendations of a DoE inspector that the Stella site would be insufficiently attractive to potential employers for the foreseeable future on the basis of its economic feasibility and problems over access.
Appealing against the councils decision, Richard Phillips argued for St Pauls that the council were wrong to block residential development on the brownfield site while giving the go-ahead for residential development on other land in the green belt land at Kibblesworth. He contended that development on the latter site would entail unacceptable loss of attractive and unspoilt countryside.
Upholding the challenge, Deputy Judge Nigel McLeod QC said that the decisions in relation to both sites had been made without proper reasoned consideration of the DoE inspectors findings. The inspectors views on the unfeasibility of employment-only use at the Stella site were highly material, given that national policy guidelines indicated that this type of development should only be allowed where the prospects of success were good.
In relation to the Kibblesworth site, he said that the council had failed to give proper consideration to implementation of their unitary development plan, and he pointed to the inspectors finding that there were no exceptional circumstances justifying building on green belt land.
If the findings of the inspector had been properly considered, he said, the council might have reached a different conclusion or undertaken a fresh inquiry. In those circumstances, St Pauls had been prejudiced by the refusal of planning consent and its objections had been deprived of proper scrutiny by the council.
After the hearing, lawyers for Gateshead said that there would be no further public inquiry in the matter, but that the whole question of development at both the sites would now be looked at afresh by the council in the light of today’s ruling.
St Pauls Development Ltd v Gateshead MBC and another Queens Bench Division: Crown Office List (Mr Nigel Macleod QC, sitting as a deputy judge of the division) 22 May 2000
Richard Phillips QC (instructed by Walker Morris, of Leeds) appeared for the applicant; Tobias Davey (instructed by the solicitor to Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council) appeared for the respondents.
PLS News 24/5/00
