Town and country planning – Gypsies – Caravan site – Appeal against refusal of temporary planning permission for established gypsy caravan site – First defendant recovering jurisdiction to determine appeal – Planning inspector recommending grant of further temporary permission – First defendant disagreeing and deciding to refuse permission – Whether giving sufficient reasons for disagreeing with findings of inspector – Whether decision giving rise to appearance of bias – Claim allowed
The claimant, his wife and three children were gypsies who lived on a caravan site near the village of Bletsoe, Bedfordshire. A temporary planning permission authorised that use of the site until June 2012. In May 2012, the second defendant council refused the claimant’s application for a permanent planning permission. The claimant’s appeal against that decision was recovered by the first defendant secretary of state for his own determination.
After conducting a public inquiry, the first defendant’s planning inspector submitted a report in which he recommended the grant of a further temporary planning permission for a period of two years. That decision was partly based on a finding that there was a current unmet need for gypsy sites in the area and that, while the second defendants had granted planning permission for another site at Meadow Lane which might meet that need, it was uncertain whether that site could offer a satisfactory living environment. The inspector identified various problems with the Meadow Lane site including its distance from any other settlement, issues of road noise and odours emanating from a sewage treatment plant and an abattoir on adjacent land.
The first defendant disagreed with the inspector and issued a decision letter in which he refused planning permission. In doing so, he concluded that the second defendants would overcome the problems with the Meadow Lane site and that a present assessment could be made that that development would satisfactorily meet the unmet need for caravan pitches.
The claimant brought proceedings under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to challenge the first defendant’s decision. He contended that the first defendant had given inadequate reasons for disagreeing with his inspector and that he was biased against the claimant in the way he had treated the inspector’s findings and in his treatment of planning appeals relating to gypsies and travellers generally. The claimant submitted that the first defendant’s decision to recover the appeal for his own determination was contrary to the right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Held: The claim was allowed.
(1) The central issue was whether the first defendant had grappled with the findings of fact and conclusions of the inspector about the contribution of Meadow Lane to the supply of caravan pitches. While the Planning Policy for Travellers Sites stated that sites with planning permission should be regarded as deliverable, that did not mean that issues of suitability were irrelevant, not least when the interests of children were involved. The first defendant had accepted that the suitability of the Meadow Lane site for occupation by gypsies and travellers was a real issue. The first defendant was entitled to say that, having considered all the inspector’s findings and conclusions about conditions on the site, he nonetheless thought that the site was suitable. However, his decision letter did not identify any finding of fact or any planning judgement made by the inspector with which he disagreed in relation to the environmental issues at Meadow Lane or its suitability as a place to live, He had simply chosen to conclude that the second defendants would overcome those issues. That conclusion was inadequately explained. If his point was that the adverse effects on suitability identified by the inspector would be addressed, he had no evidence that the second defendants would or could do that. The first defendant had failed to give adequate reasons for his decision, and had failed to grapple with a principal issue adequately. His decision was quashed accordingly.
(2) The claimant’s further arguments regarding bias were misconceived. There was no evidence of bias by the first defendant in in his decisions on planning appeals relating to gypsies and travellers. As to his decision to recover jurisdiction to decide the appeal himself, that was not a matter which could be challenged under section 288 of the 1990 Act: Connors v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government [2014] EWHC 2358 (Admin); [2015] JPL 196 applied. In any event, a recovery decision was a procedural step, not a consideration of the substantive merits of a planning appeal, and any party with a meritorious case should not have any reasonable fears about the process: R (on the application of Hadfield) v Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions [2002] EWHC 1266 (Admin); [2002] PLSCS 150 applied. The first defendant was able to make a fair assessment of the planning merits and there was nothing wrong in law with him being both policy-maker and decision-maker: R (on the application of Alconbury Developments Ltd) v Secretary of State for Environment, Transport and the Regions [2001] UKHL 23; [2003] 2 AC 295; [2001] 2 PLR 76 applied. There was no evidence of any bias specific to the claimant’s case. The complaint that the first defendant had failed to address the Meadow Lane issue properly was not an allegation of bias but an allegation that he had failed to deal with the matter adequately.
Alan Masters (instructed by Lester Morrill) appeared for the claimant; Stephen Whale (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first defendant; the second defendants did not appear and were not represented.
Sally Dobson, barrister
Click here to read transcript: Allen v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and another
