In what may be the first planning case brought by a Police and Crime Commissioner, the court was required to consider whether a legitimate expectation on the part of the claimant had arisen.
Legitimate expectation is a principle of public law that is capable of applying in the context of town and country planning. For a claim based upon legitimate expectation to be successfully advanced, a public authority must have represented (either by way of an express promise or implicitly by way of past practice) that it will conduct itself in a particular way. It may then be argued that the representation gives rise to a legitimate expectation on the part of the person to whom it was made that the public authority will so act. Should the argument succeed, the public authority may have to give effect to that expectation.
In R (on the application of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Leicestershire) v Blaby District Council [2014] EWHC 1719 (Admin); [2014] PLSCS 162 the claimant applied to quash the grant of planning permission by the local planning authority (“LPA”) for a mixed use development, including 4,250 dwellings, that the judge accepted might well be described as a “new town”.
A section 106 agreement, to which the claimant was not a party, had been entered into one purpose of which was to ensure adequate and timely contributions towards the increased cost of policing so as to mitigate properly the adverse impact of the development in that respect. In terms of mechanics, the relevant payments – once triggered – would be made to the LPA on behalf of the claimant’s police force.
The claimant’s main contention was that the LPA had erred in its negotiations with the interested parties in failing to include appropriate provisions in the section 106 agreement as to the level and timing of the payments. But he also argued that he had a legitimate expectation that the LPA would consult him in that respect, and that the outcome of such consultation would be represented in the section 106 agreement.
The court rejected this argument. While accepting that the course of dealing between the claimant and the LPA in the kind of context with which the present case was concerned could in some circumstances give rise to a legitimate expectation that a particular process would be followed by the LPA, this was not so here. The pattern of negotiation was, in effect, between the claimant and the interested parties with the LPA as the intermediary.
John Martin
