Council granting outline application for planning permission for “proposed local needs dwelling” – Application for judicial review of council’s decision – Whether development in accordance with development plan – Whether council required to give reasons for decision granting permission – Application dismissed
An application was made by S and E to the respondent council for outline planning permission for a “proposed local needs dwelling” on farmland at Cranford, Woolfardisworthy, Bideford, Devon. The land belonged to S’s parents and S worked on the farm as a farm hand. The council officers recommended that the application be refused on the ground that the proposal would be contrary to the provisions of the development plan. The development and trading services committee resolved to approve the application subject to the signing of a Town and Country Planning Act 1990 section 106 agreement containing a detailed covenant which stated that S and E were to be first occupiers of the home, and that subsequent occupiers were to be persons approved by the council as satisfying a special need within the council’s local housing needs policy. Accordingly, the council granted the outline planning permission. The applicant, who lived in Cranford, applied for judicial review of the council’s decision. The development plan was contained in the Devon County Structure Plan and Torrington Rural Areas Local Plan. Provision 2 of the local plan required housing to be within a settlement and the applicant had to be “local” and there had to be evidence of exceptional housing need. The applicant contended that the council had failed to comply with the requirement of section 54A of the 1990 Act that an application was to be determined in accordance with the development plan unless material considerations indicated otherwise. It was also contended that the council had failed to give reasons for their decision, which they were bound to do because the decision was against public policy and against the officer’s recommendation. The council submitted that the proposal was in accordance with local plan S4 and, accordingly, it was in accordance with the development plan because, by section 46(10) of the 1990 Act, provisions of a local plan prevailed for all purposes over conflicting provisions of structure plan.
Held The application was dismissed.
1. Policy S4 of the local plan envisaged that evidence of local housing need would generally have to be identified by an authority other than the planning committee by way of surveys. However it did not exclude the possibility of the identification of evidence of housing need by the planning committee themselves by reference to the facts of an individual case. The committee had had before them detailed evidence and had found a housing need. That amounted to local housing need being “identified” by an appropriate authority and, accordingly, the permission fell within the local plan and was in accordance with the development plan.
2. The decision was not an exceptional case creating an obligation on the council to give reasons, since the grant of permission was in accordance with the development plan and was therefore not contrary to policy and reasons were not required where the council’s decision was contrary to the planning officer’s recommendation.
John Lloyd (instructed by Cartridges, of Exeter) appeared for the applicant; James Findlay (instructed by Sharpe Pritchard, London agents for the solicitor to Torridge District Council) appeared for the respondents.
