Change of use — Refusal of planning permission — Appeal dismissed by inspector — Whether inspector should be ordered to attend for cross-examination on disputed facts — High Court refusing to order cross-examination — Court of Appeal allowing appeal
The appellants (father and son) were the owners of land at Llandow, South Glamorgan, where they ran the Welsh National Equestrian Centre. In May 1993 they applied to change the use of a barn to residential purposes. The application was refused by the council. They appealed and the Secretary of State for Wales appointed an inspector to determine the appeal.
The inspector held a local inquiry. The inspector dismissed the appeal, but the appellants appealed on the ground that there was a real possibility that the inspector was biased. The evidence in support was that after the inquiry the son had seen the inspector discussing a document with the council’s representative in the inquiry room, which he believed to be connected with the inquiry. The inspector denied the allegations. At the hearing of the appeal, both sides applied to file further affidavits in evidence and for leave to cross-examine the inspector. The High Court refused the applications, but granted leave to appeal.
Held The appeal was allowed by a majority.
1. Cross-examination would be allowed when the justice of the case required; that was a matter for the discretion of the judge: see George v Secretary of State for the Environment (1979) 250 EG 339; O’Reilly v Mackman [1983] 2 AC 237.
2. However, the application of that principle in planning cases where the inspector who held the inquiry was sought to be examined had given rise to difficulties: see Behrman v Secretary of State for the Environment [1979] JPL 677.
3. Inspectors occupied a quasi judicial role and there were great risks and dangers in bringing about a state of affairs where officers of that kind might be required to justify what they had said in later proceedings in the witness box. The court would only accede to an application if the justice of the case so compellingly pressed for that result that there was no proper alternative: see Richard Read Transport v Secretary of State for the Environment unreported December 14 1993.
4. The judge had properly directed himself as to the law, but misdirected himself in saying, simply by reading the affidavits, that all the evidence had been given in good faith and the differences were not more than differences of recollection. Accordingly, the Court of Appeal was entitled to interfere if it thought fit.
5. The difficulty of the case arose from the inspector’s denial of the precise movements of the parties after the close of the inquiry, as set out by the son, and the inspector’s own detailed account of those movements. The two accounts appeared to be sufficiently different as not inevitably to be attributed to differences of recollection.
6. Justice to the parties as well as to the inspector required that the disputed questions of fact on which were based allegations of impropriety should be tested by cross-examination of the deponents.
7. Per Saville LJ, dissenting: The appellants had not demonstrated that there was a proper issue to be tried as to the bona fides of the inspector, which required cross-examination for their just determination.
Peter Village (instructed by Lawrence Graham, London agents for Pitmans, of Reading) appeared for the appellants; Rhodri Price Lewis (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the Secretary of State for Wales.
