Planning permission granted for shopping centre Application to quash Secretary of State’s decision — Whether considerations given to changes since first application made — Decision upheld
The applicants challenged the legality of the Secretary of State’s handling and granting of various applications by Manchester Ship Canal Co for permission to develop land by erecting a subregional shopping centre to be known as the Trafford Centre, Manchester. Permission was sought for the centre on 123 ha with 129-unit shops, a number of large stores and over 10,000 car-parking spaces and some leisure uses. The site was in an urban development area for which the local planning authority, Trafford Park Development Corporation (TPDC), were responsible. TPDC were clearly in favour of the grant of permission, but eight out of 10, nearby local authorities (the applicants) were against. They applied to quash the decision letter of March 1993 granting permission for the development. The letter came at the end of a long process starting with an application in 1986. There was an inquiry in 1987 and 1988 and a decision letter in 1989, which stated that the Secretary of State would investigate matters further before reaching a decision. In 1991 it was decided to reopen the inquiry, which took place in 1992 and lasted several weeks. There were then further written representations from the applicants until the decision in 1993. The applicants contended that the Secretary of State failed to take proper account of the substantial amounts of extra traffic which the centre would place on the M63, which was already heavily used. They further claimed that he had failed to take proper account of various changes which had taken place since the first inquiry in 1988 both in underlying facts and policy and thus reached conclusions which were perverse.
Held The application was dismissed.
1. The decision letter stated in terms that consideration had been given to the post-reopened-inquiry representations, which drew attention to the changes since the first inquiry.
2. The actual phrasing of a decision letter was a matter for the Secretary of State. He was entitled to refer to conclusions reached on the basis of earlier material. There was nothing illegal in the Secretary of State’s decision, once he had come to the strong preliminary view that there was a substantial balance of advantage over disadvantage in any particular proposal, thereafter adopting, to any further representations which were made to him, the attitude that they would need to compromise cumulatively matters of substantial weight before they displaced the substantial balance of advantage which he perceived when forming his preliminary view.
3. The decision letter read as a whole left no doubt that the Secretary of State had looked at all the matters which were before him at the time when he issued his decision, apprehended that a number of matters had changed since the first inquiry, perceived that the proposal had a number of disadvantages but nevertheless took the view that its advantages outweighed the disadvantages. That view was not perverse as such. The decision letter was expressed with sufficient clarity to show to the applicants that the Secretary of State had grappled with the problems to which the implementation of the planning permission might give rise. In so far as there was any lack of fuller exposition of the reasoning the applicants had not been substantially prejudiced thereby.
Robin Purchas QC and Meyric Lewis (instructed by the solicitor to Tameside MBC) appeared for Bolton MBC and other local authorities; Duncan Ouseley QC and Christopher Katkowski (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the Secretary of State: David Keene QC and Paul Stinchcombe (instructed by Stephenson Harwood) appeared for Manchester Ship Canal Co; Susan Hamilton (instructed by Nabarro Nathanson) appeared for the TPDC.
