Development — Outline planning permission for hotel development in countryside — Refusal of planning permission by local council — Appeal allowed by inspector — Secretary of State rejecting inspector’s recommendations and dismissing appeal — Application to upset the Secretary of State’s refusal — High Court holding that Secretary of State entitled to exercise his own planning judgment — Application dismissed
J Ltd was involved in a joint-venture agreement for the development of an 150-bedroom hotel together with extensive car parks, conference rooms and other ancillaries on land at Baynards Green, Oxfordshire. Outline planning permission for the development was refused by Cherwell District Council. It included an application to construct a new access onto the A41(T) road and an accompanying sewage treatment plant.
An inspector was appointed to hold a local inquiry and to report on the appeal against those refusals. He recommended that the appeal be allowed subject to conditions. On January 29 1991 the Secretary of State rejected the inspector’s recommendations and dismissed the appeal. J applied to the court questioning the validity of the decision of the Secretary of State. It was argued that the Secretary of State had: (1) failed to take into account or to have sufficient regard to the recommendations and findings of his inspector at the inquiry into the rural areas local plan; (2) wrongly treated as exclusive the example given in the development control policy notice of the circumstances in which hotels might be acceptable in such areas; and (3) ought to have taken account of policies relating to “other uses appropriate to a rural area” contained in the emerging structure policy for the area.
Held The appeal was dismissed.
1. The rural areas local plan had been the subject of an inquiry in June 1989. The inspector’s recommendations at that time had been expressly rejected by the council in November 1989 long before the date of the inspector’s inquiry in the present case. It would be confusing to require the Secretary of State to consider the recommendations which had in fact been rejected already. Were it otherwise, decisions on policy would never be settled but could be reopened, thereby destroying the value of such policies in providing a framework for planning control.
2. The Secretary of State had positively recognised that the examples given in the development control policy notice were examples only and recognised that the policy notice “states that some out of town sites may be suitable for hotels”. Once it was adjudged that the development did not fall within the examples the question remained whether there were specific planning objections to the development. The Secretary of State concluded, as he was entitled to do, that the proposal conflicted with national and local planning policies in that it would represent sporadic development in the open countryside. The Secretary of State was, as a matter of planning judgment, entitled to disagree with his inspector and to conclude that the proposal would be an unwarranted intrusion rather than the “extension of an existing group”. That was a matter of opinion and conclusion and not a matter of fact.
3. The Secretary of State had, in his assessment recognised that the proposal represented an intrusion and “sporadic development in the open countryside”, and that this was exactly the type of development against which the emerging structure policy was aimed, since it was also sited at a motorway intersection. He then took account of the policy and concluded that no special consideration applied to the development. He also took account of the evidence as to need and tourism but reached again a planning judgment of his own.
4. Before reaching a conclusion that the development would be an intrusion into the countryside, it was not necessary that the Secretary of State should first view the site. He had before him many plans, photographs and the descriptive material put before the inspector. He was again entitled to make his own conclusion as a matter of planning judgment and choice. The Secretary of State had available sufficient material upon which he could himself form his own opinion and decision. The question whether the development proposed amounted to an intrusion was a matter of degree and judgment. The Secretary of State was entitled, if he saw fit and acted properly and took relevant matters into account, to disagree with his inspector’s recommendations and conclusions. He must not act capriciously or unreasonably but could and must reach his own planning judgment: see Vale Estates (Acton) Ltd v Secretary of State for the Environment (1970) 69 LGR 543; and Luke, Lord of Pavenham v Minister of Housing and Local Government [1968] 1 QB 172 at pp 172, 192.
Mary Macpherson (instructed by Slade Son & Taylor, of Wallingford) appeared for the applicant; John Howell (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first respondent, the Secretary of State for the Environment; the second respondents, Cherwell District Council, did not appear and were not represented.
