Plans for a new, 3,000 capacity stadium for Cambridge City Football Club, to be built on green belt land, are facing a legal challenge at the High Court.
Opponent to the scheme Karen Oakley hopes to win a ruling quashing the planning permission for the stadium at Sawston, claiming that South Cambridgeshire District Council has failed to provide adequate reasons for approving it after its planning officer recommended refusal.
Oakley says that the officer had provided comprehensive reasons for his view that the development would be inappropriate development in the green belt, but that the council’s planning committee gave no reasons for rejecting his advice, even though it accepted that it was a departure from the development plan.
Lawyers representing the council argued that the decision to approve the new stadium for the Southern League Premier Division side should be upheld.
They argue that, following the making of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) (Amendment) Order 2013, the authority was no longer under a duty to give reasons for a grant of planning permission.
They say this was a wholly unexceptional case that did not give rise to a common law duty to give reasons, particularly in the absence of any allegations that the substantive decision was flawed.
The court is to reserve judgment in the case.
