Alteration to local plan — Inquiry — Recommendation of inspector following local inquiry — Council rejecting recommendation — Inadequate reasons given for rejection — Substantial prejudice to applicant — Alterations to relevant part of plan quashed
This was an application under section 287 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to challenge the decision of the council, as local planning authority, to adopt alterations to the Avon Valley local plan. The challenge was limited to an application to quash that part of the plan which provided for the deletion of the New Forest heritage area (NFHA) between Fordingbridge and Ibsley and its replacement by a boundary following the A388, which included land over which the applicant held options for the extraction of sand and gravel at Radbrook Farm. The applicant, a subsidiary of the RMC Group, said that the decision was not within the council’s powers under the Act and that the requirements of the Act and regulations made under it had not been complied with. The applicant said that the decision was prejudiced by the failure of the council to give clear, proper, adequate and intelligible reasons for rejecting a recommendation of the inspector who held a local inquiry for the purpose of considering objections made to the plan. The recommendation was that the NFHA boundary be moved to the east between Fordingbridge and Ibsley. Acceptance of that recommendation would have excluded land over which the applicant held options for the extraction of sand and gravel and would effectively have accepted an objection made by the applicant.
Held The application was granted.
1. A deficiency in the statement of reasons for rejecting an inspector’s recommendation was only in breach of the statutory requirements if the interests of the applicant had been substantially prejudiced thereby. The onus was on the applicant to satisfy the court that the requirement of reasons, given at the time of the decision, had been breached: see Save Britain’s Heritage v Secretary of State for the Environment [1991] 3 PLR 17.
2. The intelligibility of reasons was to be assessed by reference to whether they would be understood by an informed reader: see British Railways Board v Slough Borough Council [1993] 2 PLR 42.
3. The council had to state their reasons in sufficient detail to enable the reader to know what conclusion he had reached in the principal important controversial issues. To require the reader to refer to every material consideration, however insignificant, and to deal with every argument, however peripheral, would be to impose an unjustifiable burden: see Bolton Metropolitan District Council v Secretary of State for the Environment [1995] 3 PLR 37.
4. In the present case, the council’s statement of reasons for not accepting the inspector’s recommendation was inadequate and did not deal with the main issues in dispute. In all the circumstances the inadequacies of the reasons given for rejecting the recommendation were so great that there had been substantial prejudice to the applicant in that, until the inspector’s recommendation had been properly considered, there must be substantial uncertainty whether the recommendation would or would not be accepted.
5. Accordingly, the provisions of the alteration to the plan could not stand. An order would be made to quash that part of the plan including the proposal map which defined the NFHA between Fordingbridge and Ibsley.
Andrew Kelly (instructed by the solicitor to RMC Group Legal Services) appeared for the applicant; Stephen Morgan (instructed by the solicitor to New Forest District Council) appeared for the council.
