Green belt — Objections to local plan — Modification to allocate alternative site for development — Second inquiry refused and plan adopted — Whether second inquiry should have been held — Application to quash granted
This was an application to quash certain proposals in the Harlow local plan relating to housing and green belt concerning land at Gilden Way and New Hall Farm, Harlow. The applicants’ land at Gilden Way adjoined Old Harrow and Churchgate Street on the north east of the new town, parts of which were conservation areas and contained listed buildings and ancient monuments. The New Hall Farm land lay to the east of the new town, south of Old Harlow and Churchgate Street. The application to the council for planning permission for the Gilden Way land was refused, as was the appeal against that refusal.
In the 1987 Harlow local plan the Gilden Way land had been included within the proposed green belt. Following an inquiry into objections to the local plan, the council resolved to retain the Gilden Way land in the proposed green belt and allocate the New Hall Farm land for 440 dwellings. The council rejected the local plan inspector’s recommendations that the Gilden Way land be removed from the proposed green belt and allocated as a housing site.
The applicants objected to the proposed modification allocating the New Hall Farm land, seeking the substitution of the Gilden Way land as recommended by the inspector; alternatively, a second inquiry to enable the comparative merits of the two sites to be assessed. The council decided that it was not necessary to hold a second inquiry and adopted the plan. The applicants applied to quash the council’s proposals.
Held The application was granted.
1. The council gave no adequate reasons for the rejection of the recommendation that the land should be removed from the proposed green belt. There was accordingly a breach of regulation 29(1) of the Town and Country Planning (Structure and Local Plan) Regulations 1982.
2. The court had no power to quash the plan or any part of it on that ground since no substantial prejudice was demonstrated by the applicants.
3. The proposal for the allocation of New Hall Farm was not considered by an earlier inspector as there was no proposal for the allocation of that land before the first local inquiry plan. The proposal was entirely different from any proposal considered at that inquiry. Equally the objections of the applicants involved new evidence not presented at the first local plan inquiry.
4. The inspector never addressed the site specific objections raised in the objection of the applicants. Accordingly the thrust of the advice in the Local Plans, Public Local Inquiries: A Guide to Procedure (the “blue booklet”) was that a second inquiry ought to have been held.
5. In deciding not to hold a second inquiry the council acted in breach of the 1982 regulations in failing to have regard to material considerations. If the council had had regard to those material considerations there was a real possibility that they would have come to a different decision. The applicants were substantially prejudiced by the breach.
6. The plan was quashed in relation to the allocation of land at New Hall Farm for residential development.
Jonathan Milner (instructed by Longmores, of Hertford) appeared for the applicants; John Harvey (instructed by the solicitor for Harlow District Council) appeared for the council.
