Plans for a five-storey development of a Sainsbury’s supermarket and 53 flats in Hackney have been backed by the high court.
Patterson J dismissed a challenge by local man Nicholas Perry, who claimed that the scheme, which has now twice been approved by the London borough of Hackney, had not been subject to the required level of environmental scrutiny and fell considerably short of the area’s affordable housing targets.
Perry had asked the judge to quash the two identical planning permissions issued to developer Newmark Properties in August 2013 and February 2014.
The scheme will involve demolition of four Victorian terraced buildings, with retail on the ground floor and housing above, as well as various business buildings behind them on a half-hectare site to the west of Stoke Newington High Street. In their place, a 16,000 sq ft ground-level food store will be built with 53 flats on four levels above it.
However, Perry claimed that only nine of those flats will be affordable – 17% of the total – falling far short of the council’s policy target of a minimum of 50% affordable housing.
Rejecting the claim, the judge said that development plan policy acknowledges that the target of 50% affordable housing is subject to site characteristics, location and overall viability, with the viability exercise to be carried out using the GLA Affordable Housing Toolkit Assessment.
She said that that exercise was followed here, and that council members were “in a position to judge whether they felt they had sufficient information to enable them to carry out their decision making exercise”, and conclude that the lower level of affordable housing was acceptable.
She added: “On a full and fair reading of the reports it is perfectly clear how the councillors came to the conclusions that they did.”
Perry had claimed that the council failed to adopt a screening opinion in respect of the first grant of permission – the claim in respect of which was referred to by the judge as judicial review one (JR1) – and, in relation to the second (JR2), adopted a screening opinion which failed to consider the impact of demolition work and failed to take into account that the proposal had initially been rejected by the council in April 2013.
The judge acknowledged the lack of a screening opinion in JR1, but said: “The grant of the second planning permission was subject to a valid screening opinion that the development was not EIA development. The claimant cannot say, therefore, that he was deprived of the opportunity to participate in an EIA process. In the present case the claimant has not been deprived of any opportunity to participate in an EIA process. No-one has suffered any substantial prejudice.
“Further, there is no evidence which is before the court to suggest that what is being proposed is, in reality, EIA development. In those circumstances it would be entirely sterile and contrary to the public interest to quash the planning permission in JR1 on this ground. I exercise my discretion and refuse to do so.”
The Queen on the application of Perry v London Borough Of Hackney Planning Court (Patterson J) 24 October 2014
Philip Coppel QC, Alex Goodman and Richard Clarke (instructed by Richard Buxton) for the Claimant
William Upton and Emmaline Lambert (instructed by London Borough of Hackney Legal Services) for the Defendant
Reuben Taylor QC (instructed by Berwin Leighton Paisner) for the First Interested Party
