The Court of Appeal is being asked to revive plans to convert the former home of Lord Beaverbrook in the Surrey countryside into a hotel, spa and golf course.
Last year, Haddon–Cave J quashed Mole Valley District Council’s decision to approve the redevelopment of the Grade II listed Cherkley Court, which the first Lord Beaverbrook bought in 1911 and lived in until his death in 1964, after its own planning officers recommended refusal on the basis that it would harm the landscape and that there was no need to add to the 11 golf courses in the local area.
He said: “The council’s decision was variously legally flawed, contrary to planning policy, failed to take account of material considerations, irrational and the reasons given for it were inadequate.”
However, now both the council and the owner of Cherkley Court are appealing that decision, in a bid to have the permission reinstated without the need for a reconsideration.
James Findlay QC, representing the council, said today that Haddon-Cave J had erred in his approach to green belt policy by treating golf course development as “inappropriate”, and therefore requiring very special circumstances to justify, when the agreed position of all parties was that courses are appropriate under Green Belt policy.
Longshot Cherkley Court – which bought the property from the Beaverbrook Foundation for £20.3m in April 2011, beating two private buyers who hoped to use it as a luxury home – is also appealing the decision.
Christopher Katkowski QC, representing Longshot Cherkley Court, which bought the Grade II listed property for more than £20m in 2011, argued that the judge’s finding in this respect was inexplicable, and that he had been wrong in addition to find that the planning committee had failed to recognise that other aspects of the scheme were inappropriate.
He said that the committee could be taken to be “wholly familiar” with green belt as its area falls extensively within it.
Mr Findlay argued in addition that the judge went too far in taking on the authority’s mantle of deciding what is or is not in the public interest.
He claimed that the judge had regarded the council’s reasons for granting permission, including economic benefits and job creation, as “somewhat prosaic” and a “far cry” from very special circumstances.
But, arguing that that was not for the court to determine, he said: “The balance between jobs and the green belt is one for local decision making. The learned judge has applied his own value judgment to the benefits so identified rather than respecting the decision maker’s view.”
He also argued that the judge was wrong to find that the Development Plan for the area imposed a freestanding requirement to demonstrate need for the golf course.
While such a requirement once formed part of the Mole Valley Local Plan, in supporting text to Policy REC12, after the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 provided for a new style of development plan, the policy was saved, but not the supporting text.
In addition, he said that the judge applied an unduly limited meaning to the word “need”, by requiring the need to be in the interests of the public and community as a whole.
Objector group the Cherkley Campaign, which won the quashing order, is defending the decision.
The appeal is scheduled to last two days, after which the court is expected to reserve its decision.
Council members voted by a majority of nine to eight to approve plans for a hotel, health club, spa and cookery school, and an 18–hole golf course, but in doing so, the High Court judge found that the majority failed conscientiously to consider whether very special circumstances existed which clearly outweighed the harm to the green belt.
He added: “The council majority at best paid lip–service to the green belt policy but did not apply it. The council majority failed to take a proper policy–compliant approach to green belt considerations.
Longshot Cherkley Court Ltd beat two private buyers seeking to use the property as a home when it bought the estate from the Beaverbrook Foundation for £20.3m in April 2011. Longshot was granted planning permission last September.
Cherkley Campaign Ltd v Mole Valley District Council Court of Appeal (Richards, Underhill and Floyd LJJ) 11 March 2014
