Development by Fulham Football Club including riverside flats – Natural sloping foreshore to be replaced by riverside wall – Whether permission vitiated by failure to consider possible need for environmental assessment under Town and Country Planning (Assessment of Environmental Effects) Regulations 1988
Under the Town and Country Planning (Assessment of Environmental Effects) Regulations 1988 (the regulations), giving effect to EC directive 85/337, planning applications for certain categories of development cannot be granted without a prior environmental assessment. Projects of a kind listed in Schedule 2 require environmental assessment if likely to have significant effects on the environment by virtue of their nature, size or location. The list includes ‘urban development projects’ as more fully considered in paras 15-17 of appendix A to Circular 15/88 (the circular).
By decision letter dated August 1996 the Secretary of State for the Environment granted planning permission and listed building consent for the provision of new all-seated stands for Fulham Football Club together with the building of 142 riverside flats with parking facilities, and a new riverside wall and walk. Led by the applicant, Lady Dido Berkeley, and campaigning under the name Thamesbank, a Fulham community group had opposed the development largely because the natural sloping foreshore near Putney Bridge would be replaced by an embankment, part of which would extend into the river itself. Proceeding under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and section 62 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 the applicant contended, inter alia , that the decision was flawed in that neither the Secretary of State nor his inspector had considered the need, if any, for an environmental assessment.
Held The application was dismissed.
1. Applying para 15 of the circular, no environmental assessment was required because the site, which did not exceed 2.5 ha, largely consisted of land which had previously been developed.
2. Even if an environmental assessment was required the failure to consider or call for it could not realistically have affected the outcome of the decision-making process. The matters complained of had been fully considered by the Secretary of State when assessing the application in the light of the various policies in the unitary plan designed to protect the riverside environment. There had been no failure on his part to have proper regard to those policies.
Robert McCracken (instructed by Richard Buxton, of Cambridge) appeared for the appellant Berkeley; Stephen Richards and David Elvin (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first respondent Secretary of State for the Environment; William Hicks QC (instructed by Herbert Smith) appeared for the second respondent, Fulham Football Club.
