Local plan review — RPG 6 — Requirement for review of green-belt boundary through development plan process — Boundary reviewed as part of structure plan review – Claimants’ land not excluded from green belt — Defendants conducting local plan review — Inspector recommending against exclusion of smaller site within claimants’ land — Whether inspector and defendant council misapplying RPG 6 policy — Whether requirements of policy discharged by previous structure plan review — Claim dismissed
The claimants had an interest in land to the west of Cambridge. The defendants were the local planning authority for the area. In 2002, the defendants, in their capacity as part of the joint strategic planning authority, participated in a structure plan review that was aimed at implementing new planning guidance in RPG 6. Policy 24 of RPG 6 required the boundary of the Cambridge green belt to be reviewed by way of the development plan process in order to facilitate a new sequential approach to development that gave preference to sites in the existing built-up area of Cambridge and on its periphery over outlying towns and villages. A detailed report was commissioned by all the local authorities responsible for the Cambridge green belt. This resulted in an unusually specific structure plan that identified particular locations for housing growth. The claimants’ proposal for a strategic urban extension of 3,500 dwellings on its land was rejected.
In 2004, the defendants conducted a review of their local plan. The claimants objected to the draft plan on the ground that the defendants should have allocated a smaller site within the claimants’ land for a mixed-use development incorporating 350 to 400 houses. Following a local plan inquiry, the inspector issued his binding recommendations. He indicated that the claimants’ site should not be allocated for housing or excluded from the green belt, since its development would have a detrimental effect upon the green belt, it was unsuitable for development on sustainability and flooding grounds, and there were no exceptional grounds for altering the green-belt boundary in that location. The defendants resolved to adopt the plan.
The claimants brought proceedings, under section 287 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, to quash the defendants’ resolution. They contended that the defendants and the inspector had misapplied policy 24 in determining whether their land should be released from the green belt, by applying a test of “exceptional circumstances” instead of asking whether the site could be released without “significant detriment” to the green belt, as required by policy 24.
Held: The claim was dismissed.
Policy 24 of RPG 6 anticipated a single act of review and was not prescriptive as to how that review was to be undertaken. Nor did it create any presumption that there would be significant green-belt land release. The defendants and their fellow local authorities had undertaken the green belt review required by policy 24 in their preparation of an unusually specific structure plan, which undertook work that would otherwise have had to be undertaken at local level. The structure plan did not impose any requirement for a further review of the green-belt boundary at local level. It was neither irrational nor otherwise unlawful for the council and the inspector to regard the structure plan process as having discharged the requirements of policy 24 for the area. Since those requirements had been discharged, any further alteration to the green belt would require the demonstration of exceptional circumstances in order to comply with PPG 2. The claimants had failed to make out a case of exceptional circumstances, and the inspector had given reasons for his recommendation that properly addressed the claimants’ duly made objections. The inspector’s approach accorded with PPG 2 and the structure plan.
John Steel QC and Robert White (instructed by Mills & Reeve, of Cambridge) appeared for the claimants; Simon Bird (instructed by the legal department of Cambridge City Council) appeared for the defendants.
Sally Dobson, barrister
