Applications for planning permission to develop food stores dismissed – Application for decision of inspector to be refused – Whether inspector correctly applying section 54A of Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and PPG 6 – Application dismissed
The applicant submitted two applications for planning permission to develop food stores on a site at Marsh End Road, Newport Pagnell. A public inquiry was held and the inspector decided to refuse both applications. He found that the appeals fell to be determined in accordance with section 54A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, which required that the appeal be determined in accordance with the development plan unless material considerations indicated otherwise. He identified the component elements of the development plan, placing particular emphasis on policy S2 of the Buckinghamshire County Structure Plan which stated that “the local planning authority will seek to maintain and enhance the identified roles of the various retailing centres in the following hierarchy; Emerging Regional Centres, Subregional Centres, District Centres and Newport Pagnell minor centres” and policy S5 which stated that “out of town shopping developments . . . will be permitted only where they would . . . not . . . seriously affect the vitality and viability of any nearby town centre . . .”. He also identified policy SH5 of the council’s local plan which required “The established town centre of Newport Pagnell . . . will act as district centre meeting the daily shopping needs of the local population”.
The inspector concluded, inter alia, that the benefits would not outweigh the real likelihood of harm to the vitality and viability of the town centre and that the material considerations outweighed the benefits of improved food shopping provision to serve the Newport Pagnell locality. The applicant appealed against the inspector’s decision contending, inter alia, that inspector had failed properly to apply section 54A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 in that he had failed to consider first the provisions of the statutory development plan and then to make an assessment of whether there were material considerations, and then to consider whether the provisions of the development plan should prevail. It was also contended that the inspector had failed in his application and interpretation of PPG 6 and that the site should have been identified as a town centre site for the purposes of the sequential test, because the development plan defined the site as being in the district centre.
Held The application was dismissed.
1. Section 54A of the 1990 Act did not require the inspector to follow and spell out a rigid preset formalistic order of approach. That would be a poor way of making a decision which required the taking into account of many varied factors in varied circumstances and the application of professional judgment and commonsense. The inspector had correctly looked at the development plan first and then appropriately not defined his final conclusion on whether or not there was accordance with the development plan until he had taken all the material considerations into account.
2. PPG 6 was based on the sequence of town centre sites. If a site was determined, in accordance with the guidance, as too far out to be “edge of centre” and with a barrier found between the site and the town centre, it was reasonable to conclude that it could not at the same time be “town centre” and, under the sequential approach, the next appropriate category was “out of centre”. Therefore, the inspector had been entitled to conclude that it was not a town centre site.
Sasha White (instructed by Lovell White Durrant) appeared for the appellant; Alun Alesbury (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first respondent, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions; the second respondents did not appear and were not repesented.
