Modification of county structure plan – Suggested policy to expand village within green belt -Policy not incorporated by council into local plan – Objection lodged by applicants – Public inquiry – Inspector proposing rolling back of green belt – Council’s director of planning opposing modification – Council adopting local plan without modification – Applicants lodging objections – Whether reasons given by council adequate – Whether council acting fairly in refusing further public inquiry – Judge held in favour of applicants – Appeal dismissed.
The applicants were a consortium of landowners whose land was included within a green belt protecting Albrighton, Shropshire. In December 1992 the Secretary of State for the Environment published a modification to the county structure plan which required the council to consider the need for housing within a reasonable distance of public transport. The council considered the modification, but decided not to alter their local plan which proposed the maintenance of the green belt. The first applicant lodged an objection. The council issued a statement on the objection concluding that the green belt boundary should be maintained because any expansion outside it would spoil the character of the village.
The inspector held a public inquiry and in October 1993 he rejected the council’s principal reason for refusing the first applicant’s objection and recommended that further consideration be given to rolling back the green belt boundary. The council’s director of planning then prepared a report concluding that the green belt should be rolled back and proposing the relaxation of areas which included the first applicant’s land. The council again considered the proposals and came to the same conclusion for the same reasons they had published in May 1994.
The applicants lodged objections and requested another public inquiry. The request was refused and the local plan adopted without modifcation. The applicants challenged the adoption of the local plan, claiming that the council had rejected their objections without proper consideration and had failed to give adequate reasons for their decisions. The judge found in the applicants’ favour and the council appealed.
Held The appeal was dismissed
1. The council were in a special situation as both the proposer and decision maker and accordingly their obligation to deal thoroughly, conscientiously and fairly with any objection was enhanced.
2. Although the inspector had rejected the council’s principal reason for refusing the first applicant’s objection, the council continued to give the same reason for rejecting both the proposal of their director of planning and the first applicant’s objection. The council had adopted an initial stance to the matter which they had ultimately adopted in their final decision indicating that they had failed to give the matter proper consideration
3. Accordingly, the judge had been correct in finding that the council’s consideration of the inspector’s report in relation to the first applicant’s objection and the reasons given for the decision were inadequate, amounting to a decision which was perverse and irrational, and further that the council had not acted fairly in deciding not to hold a further inquiry into the objections made by the applicants to the adoption of the local plan.
John Taylor QC and Peter Goatley (instructed by Hadens, of Walsall) appeared for the applicants; John Steel QC and Timothy Jones (instructed by Sharpe Pritchard, London agents for the solicitor to Bridgnorth District Council) appeared for the respondents.
