Town and country planning – Planning permission – Change of use – Local authority refusing outline planning permission for change of use from agricultural land to caravan and camping site – Defendant secretary of state dismissing appeal – Claimant developer seeking to quash decision – Whether inspector appointed by defendant wrongly concluding change of use not permitted unless very special circumstances – Whether inspector wrongly concluding National Planning Policy Framework not applicable – Whether inspector failing to have regard to economic growth – Whether inspector giving adequate reasons – Application dismissed
The claimant developer applied to the interested party local authority for change of use, of a nine hectare site in a designated green belt area in Chester, from agricultural land to a caravan and camping site to accommodate up to 120 touring caravans and 60 tent pitches on a mixture of grass and hard standing together with a shop, reception, office building and three amenity blocks. The application was refused because the site lay within the designated green belt and the proposal represented inappropriate development which would encroach into the countryside and harm its openness and visual amenities. Furthermore, inadequate information had been submitted to show very special circumstances which outweighed the harm caused. The decision refusing permission was issued on the day before the publication of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).
A planning inspector appointed by the defendant secretary of state dismissed an appeal by the claimant against that decision. The NPPF applied to the appeal because its policies applied from the date of its publication. Following a site visit, the inspector concluded, inter alia, that the proposed change of use constituted inappropriate development which was not justified by very special circumstances since, despite the benefits of the scheme, the particular characteristics of the appeal site meant that the harm caused would not be clearly outweighed by other considerations.
The claimant applied under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to quash that decision. It contended that the inspector had: (i) wrongly concluded that the proposed change of use was inevitably inappropriate development not permitted in the absence of very special circumstances; (ii) wrongly concluded that the exceptions to the general rule in paragraph 89 of the NPPF, that a local planning authority should regard the construction of new buildings as inappropriate in the green belt, did not apply; (iii) failed to have regard to the NPPF policy that significant weight should be given to the need to support economic growth through the planning system or failed to give sufficient reasons for not following that policy; and (iv) failed to give any adequate reasons for concluding that the scheme failed to safeguard the countryside from encroachment.
Held: The application was dismissed.
(1) Section 55 of 1990 Act defined “development” as “…the carrying out of building, engineering, mining or other operations in, on, over or under land, or the making of any material change in the use of any buildings or other land”. Thus, in principle a change of use was as much development as the various forms of operational development identified in section 55. The meaning of the word “development” when used in the NPPF had the same meaning as that identified in section 55 which was the meaning adopted generally in a planning law context. It followed that a material change of use was capable of being inappropriate development within the meaning of paragraph 87 of the NPPF. Whilst it is true to say that the reference to “other forms of development” and the use of the word “other” in paragraph 90 suggested that there were forms of development other than those falling within the paragraph 90 list that were capable of being not inappropriate, those words and phrases referred back to the exceptions listed in paragraph 89 which was exclusively concerned with the construction of new buildings. It did not apply and was not expressed to apply to any other form of development. When read together, as they were required to be, the meaning of paragraphs 87, 89 and 90 was clear. Development in the green belt was inappropriate, and thus could be permitted only in very special circumstances, unless it fell within one of the exceptions identified in paragraphs 89 and 90: Europa Oil and Gas Ltd v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government [2013] EWHC 2643 (Admin); [2013] PLSCS 212 considered.
(2) The purpose of the exceptions to the general rule in paragraph 89 was to distinguish between those types of new buildings which would be inappropriate if built in the green belt from those that were not. Considerations of appropriateness, preservation of openness and conflict with green belt purposes were not exclusively dependent on the size of the building or structures but included their purpose. In each case, it was for the decision maker to apply that approach in order to decide whether a particular building which was claimed to be appropriate preserved openness and did not conflict with the purposes of including land within the green belt: Europa Oil and Gas Ltd followed.
(3) Paragraph 19 of the NPPF required significant weight to be attributed to the need to support economic growth. In the present case, it was clear that the inspector had accorded weight to the economic benefits of what was proposed. Although he had not specifically used the word “significant”, as used in paragraph 19, there was no requirement to do so. Substantial weight had to be given to the harm that the inspector perceived would be caused to the green belt and weighed against the significant weight attributable to the economic benefits of the proposal as well as the weight to attributed to the other factors that supported the application before deciding whether there were very special circumstances. That was what the inspector had done and the absence of an incantation that “significant” weight had been given to the economic benefits of the proposal did not amount to an error of law.
(4) There was no substance in the argument that the inspector had failed to give reasons for his conclusion that the proposed building would fail to safeguard the countryside from encroachment. It might be that the inspector had wrongly failed to approach the issue applying the approach referred to by Ouseley J in Europa Oil and Gas Ltd but that was not the basis of the challenge in these proceedings.
Jonathan Easton (instructed by LL Barrowcliff Solicitors) appeared for the claimant; Cain Ormondroyd (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the defendant; The interested party did not appear and was not represented.
Eileen O’Grady, barrister
