A high court ruling that the National Planning Policy Framework effected a “radical change” on the approach to housing provision has been backed by the Court of Appeal.
Laws LJ today upheld the April ruling, in which Hickinbottom J allowed a challenge by two developers whose hopes of building almost 400 homes on land near Solihull were thwarted by both sites being placed within an altered green belt .
As a result, Solihull Metropolitan borough council must reconsider parts of its Solihull Local Plan, adopted in December 2013, which placed the sites at Lowbrook Farm and Tidbury Green Farm within the green belt.
Laws LJ agreed that paragraph 47 of the NPPF had introduced a two-step approach whereby planners must carry out an “objective assessment of full housing needs” (OAN) prior to assessing whether other policies dictate or justify constraint.
He said: “The NPPF indeed effected a radical change. It consisted in the two-step approach which paragraph 47 enjoined.
“The previous policy’s methodology was essentially the striking of a balance. By contrast paragraph 47 required the OAN to be made first, and to be given effect in the local plan save only to the extent that that would be inconsistent with other NPPF policies.”
Rejecting arguments advanced by the council that this process was “mechanistic”, he said: “The two-step approach is by no means barren or technical. It means that housing need is clearly and cleanly ascertained.”
In this case, he said it was clear that the requirements of the NPPF were not met and that the reality was that neither the council nor the inspector, who recommended adoption of the SLP, had undertook an OAN as a separate and prior exercise to the consideration of the impact of other policies.
“The council needs to think again,” he added.
Gallagher Homes and Lioncourt Homes, who have interests in the two sites in the Tidbury Green area of Solihull, which they wish to develop with housing, successfully brought the challenge to the SLP.
Gallagher lodged an application for outline planning permission for 200 dwellings on the Lowbrook Farm site in October 2012, before the site had been allocated to the green belt. That application was refused by the council on 31 January 2013, and a decision is awaited on Gallagher’s appeal.
Lioncourt applied for outline planning permission for the Tidbury Green Farm site, for 190 dwellings, in October last year, but the council refused that application in January 2014, after the allocation of the site to the green belt and on the ground that the proposal was for inappropriate development in the green belt. Lioncourt intends to appeal.
Gallagher Homes Ltd and anr v Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council Court of Appeal (Laws, Patten and Floyd LJJ) 17 December 2014
Christopher Lockhart-Mummery QC and Zack Simons (instructed by Pinsent Masons LLP) for the claimants/respondents
Christopher Katkowski QC and Rowena Meager (instructed by Solihull Metropolitan District Council) for the defendant/ appellant
