PP 2011/46

Where a local planning authority (LPA) adopts a positive screening opinion for the purposes of the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment)(England and Wales) Regulations 1999, it is obliged, under regulation 4(6), to accompany the opinion with a written statement giving clearly and precisely the full reasons for its conclusion. However, in R (on the application of Mellor) v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government C-75/08 [2010] Env. LR 9, the Court of Justice held that a positive screening opinion must also contain or be accompanied by sufficient information to make it possible to check that it was based on adequate screening carried out in accordance with Council Directive 85/337/EEC. The decision in R (on the application of Bateman) v South Cambridgeshire District Council [2011] EWCA Civ 157; [2011] PLSCS 58 provides a reminder of the extent of the LPA’s duty in this respect and of what will follow from a failure to comply with that duty. The appellant applied to quash a planning permission that the LPA granted, after issuing a negative screening opinion, on the principal ground that it did not contain sufficient reasoning to satisfy this requirement. In particular, he contended that the LPA had failed to demonstrate that it had considered the likely effect of the development in respect of traffic, the landscape and noise. In granting the application, the Court of Appeal held (by a majority) that the LPA’s reasons did not make it sufficiently clear why it had reached its conclusion. Moore-Bick LJ referred to Mellor and said that it was apparent that an LPA in such circumstances must provide sufficient information to enable anyone interested in the decision to see that proper consideration had been given to the possible environmental effects of the development and to understand the reasons for the decision. Third parties should have sufficient information to enable them to challenge a decision by legal proceedings, if appropriate. He then stated that it was not appropriate in the instant case simply to quash the screening opinion. Its adoption was part of a process that leads to the grant or refusal of planning permission. If any step in that process is legally flawed, the process as a whole is flawed and the grant of planning permission must be quashed. John Martin is a freelance writer