Respondent council granting applications for planning permission – Whether insufficient information before respondents to determine applications – Whether insufficient environmental assessment – Applicants seeking to quash permission – Application allowed
In February 1998 English Partnerships and Wilson Bowden Properties Ltd made two applications to the respondent council for planning permission: (i) for outline permission in respect of a business park development, for which siting, design, external appearance and means of access were to be reserved matters; and (ii) full permission for the construction of a spine road to serve the business park. Some of the information required by the respondents’ application form, for example, the amount of floorspace involved, was not provided. However, an indicative schedule was provided to assist in the consideration of the application and a master plan was submitted for illustrative purposes. Each of the planning permission applications was accompanied by an environmental assessment, which was subsequently supplemented by an ecological survey.
The respondents were satisfied with the amount of information provided, and in August 1998 granted permission, subject to an extensive code of conditions for the protection of the environment, both ecological and residential. The applicants were residents on, or frequent visitors to, the site for the proposed development and sought judicial review of both planning permissions on five grounds, notably that the planning applications had failed to provide the information required under regulations 2 and 3 of theTown and Country Planning (Applications) Regulations 1988 and the Town and Country Planning (Assessment of Environmental Effects) Regulations 1988, and was therefore perverse.
Held: The application was allowed.
1. It was not necessary in every case for an application to specify the scale of development, expressed in terms of its floorspace. It was for the respondent authority to decide, given the characteristics of the particular site and their ability to impose conditions, whether there had been a sufficient description of the development. The business park application was not in breach of regulation 3 or section 62 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.
2. A generalised description of the development did not suffice for the purpose of Schedule 3 to the Assessment of Environmental Effects Regulations. The description had to be of a sufficient level to enable the main environmental effects to be identified and assessed, and to enable mitigation measures to be taken to remedy adverse effects. Notwithstanding the difficulties for such large and long-term development schemes, prior environmental assessment had to be provided and with a greater degree of particularity than in the present case. The application did not contain a description of the development to be carried out, nor of its design or scale. Furthermore, the planning permission granted had no relation to the information used for the purpose of the environmental assessment, namely the illustrative master plan. Information as specified in para 2 of Schedule 3 should have been provided. The respondents did not have the power to grant permission for the business park. As the permission for the spine road relied upon permission for the business park, that also fell to be quashed.
John Howell QC and Kate Markus (instructed by Patwa & Co of Birmingham) appeared for the applicants; Timothy Straker QC and Philip Kolvin (instructed by the solicitor to Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council) appeared for the respondents.
Sarah Addenbrooke, barrister
