Council refusing application for planning permission – Inspector allowing appeal – Whether inspector properly considering fall-back position – Whether development accorded with green belt policies – Whether appropriate for inspector to rely on Annex C of PPG 2 – Inspector’s decision quashed
The second respondent, Berkely Homes Ltd, sought permission for the demolition of cattle market buildings, which were disused, and the erection of eight houses with garages and parking spaces, on a site covering 2.29 ha adjacent to Wrexham Park Golf Club, Wrexham. The site was within the statutory green belt approximately midway between the village of Wrexham and Wrexham Park hospital complex. The golf course lay to the north and pasture lay to the east and south. The applicant council refused permission. The second respondent appealed.
The inspector identified the main issues as whether the proposal would accord with the green belt policies and, if not, whether, first, there were any very special circumstances which justified an exception and whether, second, the development would be harmful to the interests of highway safety. The inspector concluded that there was no evidence that the proposed development would materially intensify the potential activity in the area and that there were sufficient very special circumstances which justified permitting the appeal. The council sought to have the decision of the inspector quashed. The council submitted that the inspector had failed to make a finding as to whether there was a real prospect or likelihood of the lawful use of the site being resumed when considering the fall-back position in relation to potential activity in the area. It was further submitted that the inspector had wrongly treated as very special circumstances the absence of harm arising from the proposed development to the open character of the surrounding land, and that the inspector erred in placing reliance on policy contained in Annex C of PPG 2 without ascertaining whether the land fell into the category of a “major developed site”, which was the subject of the policy.
Held The appeal was allowed.
1. When deciding whether planning permission should be granted in order to avoid greater harm that would result from the resumption of some particular lawful use of the application site, the likelihood of such resumption taking place should be considered. If the harm that would arise from the resumed use would be serious, a lower degree of probability of its resumption would be sufficient, to justify the grant of permission, than in the case of less serious harm. The assessment of the probability and the weight to be attached to it were matters for the inspector as decision maker. However, he had failed to consider whether there was any particular degree of probability that the authorised use would be resumed.
2. For a factor to amount to very special circumstances for the purpose of PPG 2, it must outweigh the harm that was inherent in inappropriate development in the green belt. That excluded a purely negative consideration such as the absence of a particular type of harm. Therefore the inspector had erred in treating as a very special circumstance the fact that it had not been shown that the development would not endanger the continued existence of the surrounding golf course and pasture land as open land.
3. Unless a site was identified in a local plan as a major developed site, Annex C had no application. Therefore, for the inspector to place reliance on it, without having established that the site was one to which the Annex applied, was clearly wrong.
Robin Green (instructed by Sharpe Pritchard, London agents for the solicitor to South Buckingham District Council) appeared for the appellants; Alun Alesbury (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first respondent, the Secretary of State for the Environment; Robin Barratt QC (instructed by Cameron McKenna) appeared for the second respondent, Berkely Homes Ltd.
