A developer that plans to build 350 new homes in the Wiltshire countryside has won its High Court bid to have the permission upheld.
Yesterday, Simon J struck out a challenge brought by Wiltshire Council to a planning inspector’s decision in January to grant Robert Hitchins planning permission to build up to 350 houses on land off
The council had refused planning permission on the basis that the site is located in the countryside and outside the framework boundary of any settlement.
However, the inspector considered that the development met the housing needs of the area and that this factor outweighed the presumption against large-scale housing development in the countryside.
Arguing that the council’s challenge to that decision should be struck out, Anthony Crean QC, for the developer, argued that the inspector’s decision to grant planning permission was “scrupulously rational” and should stand.
Allowing the developer’s application, Simon J ruled that the council could succeed on its claim only “if the Inspector’s view was seriously flawed to the point of irrationality or his reasons for his decision were inadequate to the point of unintelligibility. They were plainly not.”
Wiltshire Council v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and another
Paul Cairnes (instructed by the legal department of Wiltshire Council) appeared for the claimant; Anthony Crean QC (instructed by Shoosmiths, of
