Application — Substantial prejudice — Applicants seeking to quash local plan relating to their own land — Council designating land as wildlife heritage site — Council setting out reasons — Whether reasons adequate — Whether two sets of reasons under different regulations could be read together — Council refusing to hold fresh inquiry — Whether refusal to hold fresh inquiry unreasonable — Application granted
This case concerned the legal validity of quashing that part of the Slough local plan relating to land owned by the applicant (BRB), and known as the “Railway Triangle”. That was an area of about 2.3 ha bounded by the main line from London to South Wales on the north, the Slough to Windsor branch line on the east and on the third side was the cutting of a disused line. On the other side of the cutting was a residential road called Landsdowne Avenue. The land had been unused for the past 25 years.
In the draft local plan the council proposed residential use for the triangle, but there were objections from wildlife conservation interests and the inspector proposed a modification limiting development to part of the site. When the modification came before the council, they rejected the inspector’s recommendation in May 1991 and proposed to modify the plan by designating it as a wildlife heritage site. A fresh inquiry was refused.
BRB raised the issue of whether the council had sufficiently complied with the statutory requirements, viz sections 29, 31(1)(a) and 31(1)(d) of the Town and Country Planning (Structure and Local Plans) Regulations 1982, which required the council to give reasons for their change of mind and whether their decision to refuse a fresh inquiry was valid. The council had given their reasons for rejecting the inspector’s recommendations and for retention of the site as a permanent wildlife habitat in a formal document in July 1991 pursuant to regulation 29(1). BRB applied under section 287 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to quash all or part of the Slough local plan.
Held The application was granted with reference to that part of the plan relating to the applicant’s land.
1. The leading authority on reasons was now Save Britain’s Heritage v Secretary of State for the Environment [1991] 3 PLR 17. That case specified, inter alia, that the reasons had to be proper, adequate and intelligible and deal with the substantial points raised; the standard threshold or quality of reasons for the statutory requirement did not vary according to who was making the decision, or how much time he had to reflect on it. The degree of particularity required depended entirely on the nature of issues to be decided. Moreover, a deficiency in reasons was only in breach if the interest of the applicant had been substantially prejudiced thereby; and the onus was on the applicant to satisfy the court that the requirement had been breached. The reasons had to be those given at the time of the decision.
2. Further, the reasons had to be such as to enable the applicant to decide his course of action.
3. Another point was now well established in decisions of planning cases: namely that the intelligibility of reasons was to be assessed by reference to whether they would be understood by an informed reader.
4. With regard to reasons as required by regulations 29(1) and 31, the reasons should not be read together as a whole. One set of reasons could not be used to supplement the deficiencies of the other. The regulations required two separate decisions, two separate statements of reasons and the council had followed that pattern in this case. Therefore, each decision and its reasons had to be looked at separately.
5. The court could not accept that the statement of reasons under regulation 29(1) was insufficiently detailed. A short statement was sufficient for its purpose. It was quite capable of being understood by an informed reader such as BRB. The council were not obliged to accept the inspector’s recommendations.
6. However, on the question of criticism of the content of the reasons as set out under regulation 29 (1), the applicants were on stronger ground. There was nothing said about the need for housing land and the problems of highway improvements which, in marked contrast, formed part of the regulation 31 reasons. The regulation 29 reasons were limited to the wildlife aspect of the matter and the criticisms of them was valid. The contrast between regulation 29 and regulation 31 reasons was striking. The interests of BRB were substantially prejudiced thereby as was conceded.
7. With regard to the reasons under regulation 31(1)(a), they were complete in their contents. However, they were insufficient to inform BRB as owners of the land, because of their failure to disclose significant developments in the policies with regard to housing needs and wildlife conservation policy. Therefore those reasons were also defective.
8. Under regulation 31(1) (d) the council had to decide whether there should be a fresh inquiry. Under the Department of the Environment’s code of practice on development plan procedure that course should only be taken in exceptional circumstances. The issues which were considered at the inquiry were different in scope and content from the issues raised by the proposal to designate the site as a wildlife heritage site and did not cover the new developments in policy that the council had in mind when making the modification. Those considerations clearly called for a fresh inquiry. Fairness to persons affected was an important consideration in the exercise of the discretion under regulation 31(1)(d), especially as the council were the confirming authority of their own plan. The evidence that the refusal to hold a fresh inquiry was overwhelming that the council’s decision was unreasonable.
Peter Village (instructed by the solicitor to British Railways Board) appeared for the applicant; Richard Rundell (instructed by the solicitor to Slough Borough Council) appeared for the local planning authority.
