Development – Planning permission – Aerodrome – Green belt – National planning policy framework (NPPF) – Claimant applying for planning permission to replace grass runway with hard runway – Local authorities refusing application as being inappropriate development in green belt – Planning inspector dismissing claimant’s appeal — Claimant applying to quash decision – Whether Inspector erring in taking non green belt harm into account – Application granted
The claimant company operated an aerodrome within the administrative boundary of the second and third defendant local authorities and applied for planning permission to construct a hard runway to replace the existing grass runways and associated works. The site was located within the metropolitan green belt. The second and third defendants refused the application.
The claimant appealed against the refusal to an inspector appointed by the first defendant secretary of state. The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) set out the framework for assessing the proposed development. The inspector dismissed the appeal, concluding that the overall weight against the proposal was very strong. In reaching that conclusion, the inspector considered the relevant considerations in the NPPF. She also took into account the appearance and landscape character of the area, quality of life for local communities, highway capacity and safety, impact on the mode of travel to the proposed facility and airspace safety, all of which constituted “non-green belt harm”.
Paragraph 88 of the NPPF provided: “When considering any planning application, local planning authorities should ensure that substantial weight is given to any harm to the green belt. ‘Very special circumstances’ will not exist unless the potential harm to the green belt by reason of inappropriateness, and any other harm, is clearly outweighed by other considerations.”
The claimant made an application under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 for an order quashing that decision. An issue arose whether the inspector had been right to take non green belt harm into account either individually or as part of the cumulative green belt harm assessment.
Held: The application was granted.
(1) The green belt was not a landscape designation; it was a policy which had a spatial function. Paragraph 81 of the NPPF, which advised local authorities to plan positively to enhance the beneficial use of the green belt by retaining and enhancing landscape and visual amenity, was to be delivered by way of positive realisation of the purposes of the green belt and was not a separate iteration of potential harm if the positive aspect to green belt policy was unable to be fulfilled. The effect upon the landscape character and the visual impact of a development proposal were clearly material considerations, but were different from the consideration of harm to a green belt. The inspector had been right to treat those impacts separately from Green Belt considerations.
(2) However, given the clear guidance of the NPPF, it was not right to take non-green belt harm into account. The phrase “any other harm” in paragraph 88 of the NPPF meant only harm to the green belt. The revised policy framework was considerably more directive to decision-makers than the previous advice in planning policy documents. There had, in that regard, been a considerable policy shift. Further, where an individual material consideration was harmful, but the degree of harm had not reached the level prescribed in the NPPF as to warrant refusal, it would be wrong to include that consideration as “any other harm”.
Individual considerations should not be considered cumulatively where each of the harms identified were at a lesser level than prescribed for refusal in the NPPF on an individual basis. It could not be said that the inspector’s decision would inevitably have been the same, as her ultimate conclusion had been tainted by an impermissible approach to the NPPF: River Club v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government [2009] EWHC 2674 (Admin) considered.
Christopher Katkowski QC and Alistair Mills (instructed by Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co) appeared for the claimant; Richard Kimblin (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first defendant; Stephen Whale (instructed by Tandridge District Council and Reigate and Banstead Borough Council) appeared for the second and third defendants.
Eileen O’Grady, barrister
