Development — Planning application — First defendant calling in application for consideration — Planning decision committee granting permission — Comments attributed to committee chairman prior to meeting — Whether real possibility of bias predetermining grant of permission — Application granted
The claimant lived close to a large site in respect of which the second defendant developer had applied for planning permission to carry out open-cast mining and related removal and reclamation operations.
An inspector appointed to conduct a public inquiry had recommended that planning permission should be granted subject to certain conditions. However, the application for permission was called in for consideration by the first defendant under section 77 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Following a meeting to consider, inter alia, the inspector’s report, the planning decision committee resolved to grant permission.
The claimant applied, under section 288 of the 1990 Act, to quash the decision. She alleged, inter alia, that on the day before the meeting, the chairman had informed one of the objectors to the development that he was “going to go with the inspector’s report”. There was, therefore, a real possibility that the committee’s decision was biased because the chairman had reached a view as to the merits of the application prior to the meeting.
Held: The application was granted.
On the evidence, there was an unacceptable possibility that the grant of planning permission had been predetermined.
A fair-minded observer, hearing the words attributed to the chairman of the committee would have concluded that there was a real possibility that the chairman was biased. It would have been apparent that he would have been considering the question of permission with a closed mind, without impartial consideration of all relevant planning issues. It was irrelevant that the committee would have been expected to follow the inspector’s report unless there were planning reasons not to do so.
The proposal had caused much controversy. As arguments for and against the scheme had been equally balanced, the absence of bias was more than usually important. The planning permission would be quashed and the matter remitted to be considered afresh so as to produce a decision free from any suggestion of bias.
Charles George QC and Alexander Booth (instructed by Richard Buxton, of Cambridge) appeared for the claimant; Rhodri Williams (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first defendant; Keith Lindblom QC, Rhodri Price Lewis QC and James Pereira (instructed by DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary UK LLP, of Leeds) appeared for the second defendant, Miller Argent (South Wales).
Eileen O’Grady, barrister
