Structure plan — Housing allocation — Draft alterations replacing housing policy — Local plan adding qualification to reflect uncertainty over strategic justification for housing allocation — High Court allowing claim in part — Whether local plan in general conformity with structure plan — Appeal dismissed
The appellants were residential developers operating within the area for which the respondent local district planning authority were responsible. The area included land at Stevenage West, identified in policies 8 and 9 of the 1998 Hertfordshire structure plan review as suitable for strategic housing allocation and exclusion from the green belt. The respondents accordingly produced a draft district plan (H2) that designated the land at Stevenage West for the development of 1,000 dwellings.
An inquiry was held following objections to the draft plan, by which time the county planning authority responsible for the structure plan review had reconsidered policy 8 and concluded that there was no longer a requirement for strategic greenfield allocations within the plan period. They published draft alterations replacing policy 8 with a bare statement to the effect that no strategic allocation would be identified in the review of local plans and no further strategic-scale housing developments should be permitted.
A planning inspector concluded that the wording of the district plan should be altered, owing to uncertainty over the strategic justification for the proposed development. On his recommendation, the respondents qualified policy H2 with the statement: “The allocated land is safeguarded from development pending reconsideration and acceptance of its strategic justification.” Policy H2 also provided that the land could be released for development only if the new review to the structure plan, or some alternative reconsideration, determined that Stevenage West was required to meet the county’s development needs.
The appellants challenged the district plan under section 287 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, seeking to quash the qualification to policy H2, on the ground that; (i) it was not in general conformity with the structure plan in its current form; and (ii) the respondents had adopted the plan without considering objections to a proposed new green belt boundary. The judge dismissed the claim on the first ground, but allowed it on the second: [2005] EWHC 957 (Admin); [2005] 23 EG 141 (CS). The appellants appealed on the first ground.
Held: The appeal was dismissed.
The judge had adopted the correct approach and was entitled to hold that the statutory phrase “general conformity” was wide enough to encompass a reproduction of the structure plan policy within the local plan, subject to a qualification as to justification or timing which contemplated the purpose of the strategic plan being achieved within the plan period.
The question of whether or not there was “general conformity” between identified plans was essentially a matter of degree and planning judgment. Thus, it was appropriate that the function of the court under section 287 should be supervisory and limited to review according to the conventional public law test of rationality (the Wednesbury principle).
The term “general conformity” was nowhere defined in the legislation. Therefore the court had to apply its ordinary meaning, taking into account the practicalities of planning control inherent in the statutory scheme. To read it as simply meaning that the proposals of the local plan should be “in character” with the structure plan would be too broad a construction. The court should favour a balanced approach so that, on its true construction, the requirement might allow considerable room for manoeuvre within the local plan in the measures taken to reflect structure plan policy, in order to accommodate the various and changing contingencies that could arise.
Robin Purchas QC and Douglas Edwards (instructed by Davies & Partners, of Gloucester) appeared for the appellants; Timothy Straker QC and Richard Humphreys (instructed by the legal department of Stevenage Borough Council) appeared for the respondents.
Eileen O’Grady, barrister
