PP 2012/18

In R (on the application of Jenkins) v Gloucestershire County Council [2012] EWHC 292 (Admin) the claimant successfully applied to quash a decision by the local planning authority (LPA) to grant planning permission for sand and gravel extraction. However, it was one of his failed grounds of challenge that illustrates a vital principle. The claimant contended that the LPA had failed to comply with the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) (England and Wales) Regulations 1999 (“the Regulations”) by deferment to a condition of an issue that should have been resolved prior to any decision to grant planning permission. (At the time of the grant of planning permission, it was the Regulations that transposed into domestic law Council Directive 85/337/EEC.) The issue in question was the potential risk of groundwater flooding, and the suggested means of mitigation. The Environment Agency (EA), as a statutory consultee, had withdrawn an earlier objection to the proposed development in this connection but subject to conditions being imposed on the grant of any planning permission relating to drainage and monitoring. The officer’s report to the LPA’s planning committee recommended a condition requiring approval by the LPA of an acceptable groundwater drainage scheme and a monitoring scheme before any extraction took place. This was subsequently imposed. The claimant argued that the LPA was postponing to a condition information required to assess the likely significant effects of the development on the environment, and so had failed to comply with the Regulations. The judge pointed out that where information is required in order to “identify and assess the main effects which a development is likely to have on the environment” in accordance with the Regulations, the LPA cannot postpone the provision of that information to a condition. It must have sufficient details of any impact on the environment and of any mitigation measures in order to enable it to comply with its obligation under regulation 3(2) of the Regulations “to take the environmental information into consideration” before granting planning permission. However, in this case the EA in a long and reasoned report had concluded that the available mitigation measures were specific, and there was no real doubt about their effectiveness. The judge concluded that the LPA had been fully entitled to take that into account when deciding whether it had sufficient information. Accordingly, it had not acted unlawfully.   John Martin is a freelance writer.