The High Court has refused to allow a property developer to demolish a Victorian lodge in Royal Leamington Spa Conservation Area (RLSCA), to make way for flats, dismissing arguments that one “unsympathetic” building can be replaced by another.
This was despite the fact that the lodge wasn’t listed, and much of it is “unsympathetic”, according to a planning inspector.
Developer Spitfire Bespoke Homes planned to demolish Huntley Lodge and some associated buildings on Northumberland Road in Leamington Spa to build two detached homes, and six apartments.
“The initial building is a significant Victorian villa, which was constructed in the mid to late 19th Century. It was conceived as half of a pair of semi-detached properties, but the other half was never built. Huntley Lodge was the first building to be constructed in that section of the road,” according to a judgment handed down today by High Court Judge Mrs Justice Andrews.
Much of the rest of the site is made up of interwar and postwar extensions “described as ‘unsympathetic’ in a Guide to the Conservation Areas published by the council and quoted by the inspector”.
Even so, the inspector recommended that Spitfire’s plans should be rejected, ruling that the lodge is a “non designated heritage asset” and the proposed development was out of keeping with the character of the area.
Spitfire challenged this decision at an appeal earlier this month and, today in a ruling, the judge dismissed its arguments.
According to the ruling, lawyers for Spitfire argued that the development should be allowed because, while it might be “unsympathetic”, it also could be less unsympathetic on balance than the building it was replacing.
“Indeed, Mr Tucker [representing Spitfire] submitted it was possible that replacing an existing overall unsympathetic development with another unsympathetic development could produce a benefit in conservation terms, for example, if the new development was considered less of an eyesore and more in keeping with the conservation area than what was there already,” the judge said in her ruling.
“By singling out the aspect of the existing building that made a positive contribution, the inspector was not carrying out…[a] proper comparison exercise,” she wrote.
This argument failed to convince the judge.
“An obvious problem with the claimant’s prescriptive cumulative approach to assessing how the existing building impacts on the conservation area is that, in a case where there is a building which comprises elements which contribute positively (both historically and aesthetically) to the conservation area and elements which do not, then whenever the unsympathetic elements are more extensive, the contribution to the conservation area which is made by the aspects which do contribute to it would be eclipsed by them,” she added in her ruling.
“In consequence, the impact of their loss on the conservation area would not be properly considered at all. It is not unusual for a heritage building to have unsympathetic extensions. When forming a view of the current character and appearance of the conservation area, the decision maker must surely be entitled to take into consideration the positive as well as the negative or neutral elements of the existing building or buildings. The degree to which each element contributes to the overall assessment is a matter of planning judgment.”
She said that the criticism of the inspectors’ approach was “misconceived”.
“It was the nature of the proposed replacement buildings that ultimately proved fatal to the claimant’s application,” she said
“The inspector described their appearance as ‘harmfully out of keeping with the appearance of the street scene’. Even if the inspector had proceeded on the basis that the existing building, taken as a whole, made a negative rather than a positive contribution to the RLSCA, I am satisfied that the outcome for the claimant would have been the same. For all the above reasons this ground fails.”
She also dismissed an argument from Spitfire that it had been the victim of procedural unfairness.
“It follows that this claim must be dismissed,” she said.
Spitfire Bespoke Homes Ltd v Secretary of State for Housing Communities and Local Government; Warwick District Council
Planning Court in Birmingham (The Honourable Mrs Justice Andrews DBE) 22 April 2020
Judgment handed down remotely under the Covid-19 Protocol
