Local residents opposed to plans to build a housing estate on sports fields in Leeds have won their fourth successive victory against the local council.
TV Harrison CIC, a community interest group set up to protect a sports field on land at Oldfield Lane in Wortley, is fighting a legal battle against planning permission granted by Leeds City Council allowing 61 affordable homes to be built on the site.
The land has been restored and maintained by the local community. Part of the site is owned by Leeds City Council and leased to Leeds Schools Sports Association, which owns the remainder of the land.
A High Court judge quashed planning permission in August 2021, and the group has twice won rulings that the council’s decision not to make the sports ground an asset of community value was unlawful.
Even so, the council granted planning permission for a second time in October last year. TV Harrison appealed the decision to the High Court and, in a judgment today, Mr Justice Eyre backed the community interest group and quashed planning permission.
Leeds City Council will now have to reconsider its decision.
“TV Harrison CIC believes the fact that this is the fourth decision by Leeds City Council relating to TV Harrison Sports Ground to be quashed suggests that the council is determined to keep pushing the development regardless of the legal protections in place for sports fields such as this,” Ricardo Gama, the group’s solicitor, said in a statement.
“Our client hopes that this latest judgment will cause council officers to rethink their approach and, at the very least, to make sure that all council policies are properly applied,” said Gama, a solicitor at Leigh Day.
The challenge was heard last month in Leeds.
At the hearing lawyers for TV Harrison argued that the the planning committee that approved the permission wasn’t properly briefed because the planning officer didn’t mention a significant policy in his report.
The judge ruled that, had the committee been properly briefed, “I cannot be satisfied that it is highly likely that the outcome would not have been substantially different.
“The decision was based on an approach which was wrong in law and it is to be quashed,” he ruled.
TV Harrison CIC v Leeds City Council and Leeds Schools Sports Association
QBD sitting in Leeds (Mr Justice Eyre) 6 July 2022
