Government policy — Local authority granting planning permission for development — Ministers approving alteration to joint structure plan — Whether safeguarding of site justified — Whether planning policy NPPG 8 applying to retail component of proposed development — Appeal dismissed
R Ltd applied for planning permission to create a new town centre that included dwellings, parkland and a centre with retail floorspace, offices and other services. The development was to be built partly on a vacant and derelict brownfield site.
The appellants had both made significant investments in nearby town centres. They objected to the proposal as being contrary to NPPG 8, which set out the government’s policy for protecting and enhancing town centres and retail developments, and the Glasgow and Clyde Valley joint structure plan 2000, schedule 1(a) of which listed town centres to be safeguarded through structure and local plans. The council granted planning permission and the second respondent promulgated the first alteration to the joint structure plan, which proposed to designate the site as a town centre. The first respondents approved the alteration without modification.
The appellants appealed under section 238 of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997, seeking to quash the first respondent’s decision on the ground that it was not within the powers conferred by the 1997 Act. They contended that the effect of the proposed retail component of the development had not been properly evaluated, and that it would constitute a sub-regional centre and have an adverse effect upon retail outlets in existing town centres. Issues arose as to whether: (i) the inclusion of the site in schedule 1(a) was justified; and (ii) whether NPPG 8 applied to the retail component provided for in the alteration.
Held: The appeal was dismissed.
1. Bearing in mind the extent to which a structure plan anticipated future developments, no objection could be made to the inclusion, in schedule 1(a), of a proposed new town centre to protect it from inappropriate development and to put it, as far as possible, in the same position as existing town centres that had already been included.
A structure plan clearly looked to the future. It identified priorities for urban and rural regeneration, and provided a long-term vision, looking forward at least 10 years as part of the overview of the development requirements of the area. It also indicated the proposed long-term nature, scale and location of any change. Where there was a firm proposal for a new town centre within the timescale set out in the structure plan, and the regeneration of the site was a national priority, it was neither perverse nor irrational to safeguard that town centre for the future.
2. With regard to the proposed alteration, the first respondents were not obliged to comply with the requirements of NPPG 8, since it did not deal with a situation in which a retail development was proposed as part of a comprehensive redevelopment of an undeveloped brownfield site involving the future creation of a new town centre. The interpretation of policy guidance was a question for the first respondents rather than the court, unless an issue of irrationality or perversity were to arise. There was no basis for inferring that the first respondents had misinterpreted or misapplied NPPG 8: Council of Civil Service Unions v Minister for the Civil Service [1985] AC 374 and R (on the application of Tesco Stores Ltd) v Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions [2001] JPL 686 considered.
Heriot Currie QC and Elizabeth Wilson (instructed by Semple Fraser) appeared for the appellants; Gerry Moynihan QC and James Wolffe (instructed by the solicitor to the Scottish Executive) appeared for the first respondents; Richard Keen QC and Kenneth Mure (instructed by Simpson & Marwick WS) appeared for the second respondent.
Eileen O’Grady, barrister