Planning permission – Development plan – Rural exception site policy – Claimant parish council applying to quash decision of first secretary of state allowing appeal of second defendant developer against refusal planning permission for affordable homes in green belt – Whether inspector misinterpreting and misapplying rural exception site policy – Whether inspector failing to give adequate reasons for decision – Application granted
The second defendant housing association applied for planning permission for an affordable housing development of 15 dwellings on land at Coach House, Cromer Road, Old Hunstanton. The site was within the administrative boundary of the claimant parish council. It was approximately 0.5 hectares of an agricultural green field site on the southern edge of the village. As it was outside the settlement boundary, the issue was whether planning permission could be granted, applying a rural exception site policy.
The third defendant local planning authority refused permission on the grounds that it would result in a reduction in the separation between the settlements of Hunstanton and Old Hunstanton, thus causing unacceptable levels of harm to the character of each settlement and of the countryside. The harm would not be outweighed by the benefit of providing affordable housing and so would be contrary to paragraphs 54, 61 and 63 of the national planning policy framework (NPPF) and to Core Strategy Policies CS06, CS08 and CS12.
An inspector appointed by the first defendant secretary of state allowed the second defendant’s appeal and granted permission. She concluded that the benefits of the scheme, in terms of delivering affordable housing, outweighed the limited harm to the character and appearance of the area, particularly with regard to the coastline and separation of settlements.
The claimants applied under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to quash that decision. They contended that the inspector had misinterpreted the development plan in general, and in particular Core Strategy Policy CS06 and the rural exception site policy, by assuming that the requirement for local housing need, to justify residential development on a green field site abutting the rural village of Old Hunstanton, could be met by reference to housing need in the town of Hunstanton. On a proper interpretation of the development plan, local housing needs had to be established in the immediate settlement and other nearby rural villages or hamlets. Although the claimants had raised that point of principle, the inspector had not addressed it in her reasons.
Held: The application was granted.
(1) The determination of an application for planning permission was to be made in accordance with the development plan, unless material considerations indicated otherwise and the NPPF was a material consideration in planning decision making. The decision-maker was required to give priority to the development plan, applying a presumption that the development plan would govern the decision unless material considerations indicated otherwise. Beyond that, the assessment of facts and the weighing of the considerations were left in the hands of the decision-maker: City of Edinburgh Council v Secretary of State for Scotland [1997] 3 PLR 71 and Tesco Stores Ltd v Dundee City Council [2012] UKSC 13; [2012] PLSCS 69 applied.
(2) The purpose of the third defendants’ rural exception site policy was to provide affordable housing in small rural communities. Such housing development was intended to meet local needs and to maintain the vitality of those communities and to meet the identified needs of the local community. Those needs were primarily the needs of the small rural settlement in which he development site was based. The policy was, exceptionally, relaxing planning constraints on development in rural areas so as to meet the needs of small rural communities, not to meet the housing needs of neighbouring towns and larger conurbations. However, the natural meaning of the word “local” in this context was not necessarily limited to the needs of the settlement in which the development was situated. It could also extend to the needs of other small rural settlements and communities nearby if, in the judgment of the decision-maker, they were “local”. The development plan did not permit towns to export their housing needs to greenfield sites in rural villages. That was not the intention of the rural exception site policy, nationally or locally.
(3) The starting point for the inspector should have been to identify the local communities whose housing needs were to be considered but her finding of housing need was generally “in the area”, not specific to Old Hunstanton or neighbouring villages. The evidence of local need was very general in nature, the forms and letters relied on were not in evidence and the inspector had made no mention of that evidence in her decision. In the circumstances, the court was unable to make primary findings on housing needs in this case, based on incomplete evidence, to compensate for shortcomings in an inspector’s decision. Nor could it be said that, even if inspector had correctly interpreted and applied the policies, it would have made no difference, The evidence of local housing need was simply too uncertain.
(4) Therefore, the inspector had misinterpreted and misapplied the rural exception site policy and, by failing to address expressly the claimants’ submissions on the proper interpretation and application of the policy, she had not given adequate reasons for her decision. An inspector ought to give reasons for his or her conclusion on any fundamental question raised about the proper interpretation of a development plan policy, as that was central to his or her statutory duty, under section 38(6) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, to determine an application for planning permission in accordance with the development plan, unless material considerations indicated otherwise.
Luke Wilcox (instructed by Humphries Kerstetter LLP) appeared for the claimants; Richard Honey (instructed by the Government Legal Service) appeared for the first defendant; Heather Sargent (instructed by Stephens Scown LLP, of Exeter) appeared for the second defendant; the third defendant did not appear and was not represented.
Eileen O’Grady, barrister
