Temporary planning permission – Gypsy or traveller site – Green belt land – Inspector refusing planning permission on appeal – Whether giving insufficient weight to failure of second respondent council to fulfil statutory duty to assess accommodation needs of gypsies and travellers and prepare strategy for meeting those needs – Whether properly applying guidance in Circular 1/2006 – Appeal dismissed
In 2007, the appellant purchased green belt land in Wickford, Essex, which the previous owner had used as a traveller site pursuant to a temporary personal planning permission. After moving onto the land with his family, the appellant applied to the second respondent council for a grant of planning permission in his favour. The second respondents refused planning permission. Their decision that was upheld by the first respondent’s planning inspector on appeal. The inspector found that that there was an unmet need for gypsy sites in the area, which would not be met by planned provision by the second respondents in the foreseeable future and would instead rely on permissions for private sites. However, he found that the appellant had no strong ties to the area or the site and concluded that there were no special circumstances to justify inappropriate development in the green belt.
The appellant brought proceedings, under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, to quash the inspector’s decision not to grant a temporary permission. He contended that the failure of the second respondents to fulfil their statutory duties, so far as these required them to carry out an assessment of the accommodation needs of gypsies and travellers in their area and to prepare a strategy for meeting those needs, was a material factor that should have weighed in his favour. He submitted that the inspector should have given more weight to the absence of such a strategy, and to the unmet need for gypsy and traveller site provision in the area, in the light of government guidance in paras 45 and 46 of Circular 1/2006. The claim was dismissed in the court below: see [2012] EWHC 1303 (Admin).
The appellant appealed.
Held: The claim was dismissed.
The inspector had taken into account the second respondents’ failure to make an assessment of need and had considered that the existence of an unmet need favoured a grant of permission. He had given significant weight to the second respondents’ breach of statutory duty under section 225 of the Housing Act 2004 and its consequences and implications for the appellant.
However, he had been entitled to conclude that it did not outweigh the other material considerations pointing against a further temporary permission on the particular piece of green belt land. Para 45 of Circular 1/2006 advised that a temporary permission might be justified where there was an unmet need for gypsy and traveller site provision in an area but there was a reasonable expectation that new sites were likely to become available at the end of the period of the temporary permission. The considerations in the appellant’s favour could not create a reasonable expectation that new sites were likely to become available when it had reasonably been concluded that they would not. That would amount to re-writing para 45 and 46 of the circular. The inspector had weighed up the different factors in a way he was entitled to do and had sufficiently expressed his reasons for deciding as he did.
Stephen Cottle (instructed by Community Law Partnership, of Birmingham) appeared for the appellant; Stephen Whale (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first respondent; Melissa Murphy (instructed by the legal department of Basildon Borough Council) appeared for the second respondents.
Sally Dobson, barrister