A campaign group’s bid to block plans by developers ProLogis and PRUPIM for a 1.36m sq ft distribution park in Hampshire has reached the High Court.
Over the next two days John Howell QC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge, will be asked by Stop Pyestock bLot Act Today (SPLAT) to quash the decision by the former secretary of state for communities and local government to allow the redevelopment of the former Ministry of Defence testing facility at Pyestock.
Plans for the site were originally lodged with Hart District Council in 2005 but were put before the secretary of state after the council failed to decide the outline planning application and rejected a detailed planning application.
Following a public inquiry, secretary of state’s inspector said: “This is a finely balanced case, but it is my overall conclusion that the identified environmental harm is of overriding importance and for this reason alone both appeals should be dismissed.”
In September 2009, the secretary of state rejected that conclusion and allowed the development on the ground that its benefits would outweigh any harm to on the character and appearance of the area.
At the High Court, lawyers for SPLAT are arguing that the secretary of state failed to take into account “that it would be quite possible for a policy-complaint employment development to be accommodated on the appeals site, generating the same number of jobs, but without increasing significantly the existing amount of floorspace”.
They also allege that the secretary of state “gave no adequate or intelligible reasons” for his decision and had acted “perversely”.
In papers filed at the court, lawyers for the secretary of state are arguing that the allegations are “without merit” and the court can not interfere with what was a “classic exercise of planning judgment by the secretary of state as decision-maker.”
The case continues.
