Planning application — Development and change of use of listed building — Concerns raised regarding highway safety and commercial viability of proposals — Defendants granting permission — Whether entitled to reject view of local highway authority on highway safety — Whether proper consideration of viability issue — Claim dismissed
The interested party applied to the defendant council for listed building consent and planning permission for the refurbishment of an Elizabethan country hall and a change of use from a language school to that of a hotel. The claimant, who lived in the grounds of the hall, lodged objections, in which he raised issues of highway safety and asserted that the proposals lacked the necessary commercial viability to justify them as “enabling development” within PPG 15 and the relevant English Heritage policy statement. He submitted consultants’ reports in support of both points. The members of the defendants’ planning committee conducted a site visit and considered a report by a planning officer. They were informed that the relevant highway authority considered the proposals to be unacceptable on traffic safety grounds since the visibility splays of 40m shown on the application proposals at the point of access from the site to the highway were not possible in practice. None the less, they approved the application, subject to the application being referred to the secretary of state; who decided not to call in the application for his own determination. The defendants proceeded to grant listed building consent. After considering the application for planning permission afresh and conducting a further site visit, they also granted planning permission.
The claimant brought judicial review proceedings to challenge the grant of permission on the grounds, inter alia, that: (i) they could not properly have concluded that the proposed access to the hall was acceptable, since they had no rational basis for rejecting the objection of the highway authority; and (ii) the defendants had failed to consider whether the proposals as a whole were viable, rather than just those parts that involved the construction of new buildings.
Held: The claim was dismissed.
(1) The defendants had considered the issue of highway safety raised by the highway authority as a material consideration. It had been for them to consider the factors for and against the grant of permission and to give those factors such weight as they thought appropriate in reaching a decision. Having undertaken two inspections of the site, it was open to the defendants’ planning committee to reach a different view from that of the highway authority as to the significance to be attached to the failure to achieve visibility splays of the recommended length. They had been entitled to have regard to their own experience in such matters as well as to the views of the highway authority and the claimant’s consultant. The claimant’s contentions were tantamount to suggesting that the view of a local highway authority upon a matter of highway safety would always to override all other planning considerations unless contrary expert evidence undermined it. That was not so. The view of a highway authority, upon one aspect of a proposal, was merely a material consideration.
(2) PPG 15 and the policy statement required the defendants to consider the viability of the development as a whole. Consideration of viability was not confined to cases where there were actively competing uses for the site. The defendants had had PPG 15 and the policy statement well in mind and had addressed the viability issue. Their consideration had not been confined to the need for those parts of the development that involved the construction of new buildings. There had been information before them upon which they could reasonably conclude that the proposals were viable.
Robin Green (instructed by Hewitsons, of Cambridge) appeared for the claimant; Saira Kabir Sheikh (instructed by the legal department of South Cambridgeshire District Council) appeared for the defendants; Robert Fookes (instructed by Green & Green, of Bury St Edmunds) appeared for the interested party.
Sally Dobson, barrister
