Residential development of countryside site — Whether shortage of housing supply land — Whether inspector applied PPG 3 correctly by treating the replacement structure plan as the adopted plan, rather than the existing plan — Whether inspector misconstrued local plan policy in relation to site — Application to quash dismissed
The issue concerned an application by Guildford Borough Council to quash a decision letter dated November 23 1994 by an inspector on behalf of the Secretary of State for the Environment. The decision letter allowed the appeal of the second respondent, Charles Southern Ltd, and granted planning permission for a residential development on land at South Lane, Ash. The site was located in an area referred to in both the existing Surrey structure plan, adopted in 1989 (“ESSP”), and Guildford Local Plan 1993 as “Countryside beyond the Green Belt”. Both plans contained policies stressing the importance of such land for its own sake. Policy 3RE of the local plan stated that: “the council will normally oppose development of Countryside beyond the Green Belt”. A similar policy was contained in the emerging replacement Surrey structure plan (“RSSP”).
At the time of the inquiry relating to the appeal, the RSSP had completed its formal stages and approval was imminent. It fixed the housing requirement for Guildford, during the five-year period from April 1 1994 to March 30 1999, at 1,546 new dwellings. The ESSP only required 1,299 dwellings for the same five year-period. The applicants submitted that: (a) the inspector had misread PPG 3 with respect to shortages of housing land supply. In particular, when concluding that there was a substantial shortage of housing land supply, he treated the RSSP as the adopted plan, rather than the ESSP; (b) the inspector misconstrued policy 5H of the local plan. It states that, “the council will consider planning applications for the residential development of unidentified sites of 1.0 acres or more on their individual merits in the context of the relevant policies in the plan”. Thus, the applicant contended that policy 5H did not allow for the release of a site which conflicted with policy 3RE.
Held The application was dismissed.
1. The decision letter had to be read as a whole, on the basis that it was addressed to informed parties, who were aware of the matters considered at the inquiry.
2. Normally, applying PPG 3, if an inspector found a marginal shortfall of housing land, that would merely point to a need to review the local plan. However, in the present case the RSSP: (a) would give rise to a much larger deficit of housing land; and (b) was almost in place. Accordingly, the inspector should and did consider the following questions: (a) did a strict application of PPG 3 give the correct housing supply figures? and (b) if a strict application gave a misleading picture of housing land supply, then the inspector was entitled to depart from PPG 3.
3. The inspector correctly applied local policy 5H. It required a consideration of a site on its individual merits within the context of a consideration of the relevant policies of the plan. The inspector had taken everything into consideration and had reached the conclusion that on balance the scheme was acceptable.
Joseph Harper QC (instructed by Sharpe Pritchard) appeared for the applicant planning authority; Nathalie Lieven (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the Secretary of State for the Environment; Adrian Trevelyan Thomas (instructed by Merriman White of Guildford) appeared for Charles Church Southern Ltd.
