Planning permission for a strategic rail freight interchange (SRFI) on the site of the former Radlett Aerodrome has survived a High Court challenge from the local authority that twice rejected the scheme.
St Albans city and district council had hoped to have the permission for the SRFI on 419 hectares of green belt land quashed, claiming the communities secretary was wrong to approve it in July last year.
That decision followed a long and complex planning history since a first planning application was refused by the council in 2006, during which time the scheme has been opposed by local campaign group STRiFE.
Developer Helioslough was unsuccessful in an appeal against that first rejection, and its second identical application was refused in 2009. Again, its appeal was dismissed, but it succeeded in having that decision quashed by the High Court in 2011.
Reconsideration of its second application led to permission finally being granted last year.
But the council claimed that the secretary of state erred by setting a legal test requiring a “very good reason” to be shown for departing from the conclusion reached in the 2008 inspector’srReport and the 2008 decision letter on the first appeal. It alleged that, in this way. the secretary of state improperly fettered his discretion when determining the second appeal.
It also accused the secretary of state of wrongly failing to take into account his decision dated 7 July 2014 – one week before the permission was granted in this case – in which he refused the application by Veolia ES (UK) Limited for planning permission for a waste management facility on a site at New Barnfield, four miles away from the Helioslough site.
However, dismissing the claim, Holgate J said: “I am left in no doubt that the Inspector and the secretary of state did not either misdirect themselves by imposing a legal test requiring a good or very good planning reason for disagreeing with the earlier decision to be shown or improperly fetter the scope of their discretion to reach independent judgments on the merits of the second application. The allegation is unfounded. Moreover, there is no basis for suggesting that the reasoning of the Secretary of State (or the Inspector) was inadequate in relation to this issue.
Rejecting the second ground as flawed, he added: “On the material before the court it is impossible to reach the conclusion that, as a matter of law, matters in the Veolia decision upon which the council relies were sufficiently closely related to the issues in the Helioslough appeal, so that they were ‘obviously material’ to the latter and the Secretary of State was under an obligation to take them into account.”
The Veolia decision was quashed by the High Court in January.
The 3.5m sq ft rail freight depot will include five warehouses, one the size of Heathrow’s Terminal 5.
St Albans City and District Council v Secretary of State for the Communities and Local Government and others Planning Court (Holgate J) 13 March 2015
Matthew Reed and Sasha Blackmore (instructed by St Albans City and district council) for the claimant
Stephen Whale (instructed by the treasury solicitor) for the first defendant
Martin Kingston QC and David Forsdick QC (instructed by Hogan Lovells) for the second defendant
Paul Stinchcombe QC and Ned Helme (instructed by Wayne Leighton LLP) for the interested party
