Wandsworth London Borough Council have failed in their Court of Appeal challenge to a grant of planning permission for a Tesco supermarket in the neighbouring borough of Lambeth.
The council opposed the scheme on the ground that the proposed site, the former South London Hospital for Women, in Balham Hill, London SW12, falls close to Wandsworth’s boundary. They maintained that the supermarket would have a detrimental effect upon other stores in the area.
In the High Court, Lawrence Collins J held that the Secretary of State had been entitled to conclude that Balham Hill was an “existing centre” that satisfied planning policy favouring such centres for shopping developments.
On appeal, Stephen Morgan, counsel for the local authority, claimed that the Secretary of State’s reasons for the designation of Balham Hill as an “existing centre” were without basis.
Dismissing the appeal, Jonathan Parker LJ said: “The word ‘centre’ in the expression ‘within an existing centre,’ when read in context, is clearly capable of bearing a meaning that extends beyond that of town centres in the strict sense, so as to include neighbourhood or local centres.”
Laws LJ agreed, adding that “in a case such as this, the words and meaning of the planning guidance documents must have been present in the mind of all the participants; indeed they would have been travelled over time and again. Circumstances of that kind are systematically important in ascertaining whether, in any given instance, the decision maker’s duty to give reasons has been fulfilled.”
Wandsworth London Borough Council v Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions and another Court of Appeal (Ward, Laws and Jonathan Parker LJJ) 19 February 2003.
Stephen Morgan (instructed by Argles Stoneham Burstows, of Maidstone) appeared for the appellants; Nathalie Lieven (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first respondent; Patrick Clarkson QC and Scott Lyness (instructed by Berwin Leighton Paisner) appeared for the interested party.
References: PLS News 19/02/03
