Town and country planning – Development – Local plan – Defendant local authority adopting local development plan with modifications recommended by inspector – Significant modifications being made – Claimant developer applying to quash local plan – Whether substantial changes validly made to local plan following recommendations by inspector pursuant to section 20(7) – (7C) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 – Application dismissed
The claimant was the promoter of development on a site to the north east of Lichfield, off Watery Lane, Curborough. The claimant’s application for planning permission for 750 houses on the site was refused by the defendant local authority. The claimant appealed. The public inquiry for purposes of the appeal had commenced but the inspector’s report to the secretary of state was delayed to await the outcome of an application by the claimant under section 113(3) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 to quash the Lichfield District Local Plan made on 17 February 2015 by the defendants. The interested parties were developers promoting the development of land to the south of Lichfield in the green belt.
The claimant based its application on four grounds, including the novel legal point that the defendants had no power to adopt the local plan with the modifications in respect of the green belt sites, as proposed by the planning inspector, since the modifications were fundamental departures from the spatial strategy originally set out. The claimant contended, that although the defendants were entitled to request an inspector to recommend modifications, so as to make a local plan legally compliant, that power could not be used to make significant or extensive changes which amounted to a rewriting of the local plan.
Held: The application was dismissed.
Section 20(7)-(7C) of the 2004 Act contemplated that changes of substance could be made to the local plan. The legislative history was that subsections (7)-(7C) had been introduced into section 20 by section 112 of the Localism Act 2011. As originally enacted, section 20(7) provided that the person appointed to carry out the examination had to make recommendations and give reasons for those recommendations. The amendments to section 20 increased the scope for planning inspectors to recommend changes so as to enable local plans to be found sound. Previously, plans would have had to be found to be unsound and therefore unable to proceed to adoption. The Localism Act 2011 had changed that. There was no limitation in the statutory language which prevented a rewrite of the local plan. The 2013 Planning Inspectorate guidance did not compel a contrary conclusion. While under section 19(2)(a) of the 2004 Act regard had to be had to guidance, such guidance had to give way to the legislative intention and it did not purport to be exhaustive. In any event, the nature and extent of the modifications were a matter of judgment for the planning inspector. He had grappled with the rival submissions about strategy and concluded that the release of green belt sites was consistent with the plan’s urban and key centre strategy and was satisfied a to compliance with legal requirements. It was horn book law that the courts would not interfere with an exercise of planning judgment. Accordingly, the application to quash the local plan would be refused: Tesco Stores Ltd v Secretary of State for the Environment [1995] 1 WLR 759 applied.
Anthony Crean QC (instructed by Shoosmiths) appeared for the claimant; Giles Cannock (instructed by Lichfield District Council) appeared for the defendants; Morag Ellis QC (instructed by Berwin Leighton Paisner) appeared for the first interested party; Satnam Choongh and James Corbet Burcher (instructed by Squire Patton Boggs (UK) LLP) appeared for the second interested party.
Eileen O’Grady, barrister
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Click here to read the transcript of IM Properties Development Ltd v Lichfield District Council
