Planning application – Employment use – Planning policy – Local plan policy identifying application land as site to be protected for employment use – Planning permission refused for appellant’s proposed employment development on ground of unsuitability of site – Whether identification of site in local plan amounting to allocation for employment use such as to make it impossible to dispute suitability – Whether inspector misunderstanding planning policy – Whether procedural unfairness at hearing – Appeal dismissed
The appellant applied to the interested party council for planning permission to construct new storage and distribution units, together with associated parking and landscaping, on a former airfield located in the countryside. Part of the site was already in use as an industrial estate. The airfield was identified in local plan policy ECON 1 as a site to be protected and safeguarded for employment use and formed part of the council’s employment land portfolio. A further local plan policy, ECON 2, allowed for the expansion of existing rural employment sites provided that they met criteria relating to need and the absence of significant harm to the area. The council refused planning permission for the proposed development on the ground that it was unsuitable.
An inspector dismissed the appellant’s appeal to the first respondent. He had found that the site was in an isolated rural location with limited services and facilities and no convenient public transport access. He rejected the appellant’s contention that the protected status of the site in the local plan amounted to an allocation for employment use, making it impossible for the council to contend that it was unsuitable for such use. The inspector considered that although the development would not conflict with ECON 1, that policy did not favour the proposal and the development did not meet the criteria for the expansion of employment sites set out in ECON 2.
The appellant brought proceedings to quash the inspector’s decision on the ground that he had, inter alia, misconstrued the relevant the planning policies. Dismissing the claim, the judge held that the inspector had not misconstrued planning policy and had been entitled to conclude that the identification of the site as one that was to be protected for employment purposes did not mean that it was suitable for the development proposed by the appellant: see [2009] EWHC 580 (Admin); [2009] PLSCS 103. The appellant appealed.
Held: The appeal was dismissed.
The relevant planning policy was protective and did not amount to the allocation of the site for employment use. The inspector had taken the correct approach to the relevant planning policy and it was evident why he had reached the decision he had in the light of the site’s locational character. To construe the policy as allocating the protected land for employment use would lead to illogicality and an oversupply of new employment land.
Ian Dove QC and Richard Kimblin (instructed by Pinsent Masons LLP, of Birmingham) appeared for the appellant; Rupert Warren (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the respondent; Peter Goatley (instructed by the legal department of Wychavon District Council) appeared for the interested party.
Sally Dobson, barrister