Planning policy – Local plan – Core strategy – Claimants submitting planning application for redevelopment – Court quashing decision to dismiss claimants’ appeal against non-determination by defendant council – Claimants’ proposals complying with existing noise constraints – Defendants adopting core strategy with more stringent key objective on noise – Claimants applying to quash key objective – Whether core strategy failing to take account of general policy on noise-sensitive development – Application granted
The claimants held land interests in a substantial part of the north-east sector (NES) of Crawley and the defendants were the local planning authority. The NES was identified in the West Sussex structure plan 1993 (the structure plan) as a suitable location for an additional new neighbourhood for Crawley and was allocated in the adopted local plan of 2000 for the development of up to 2,700 dwellings and other uses.
The claimants submitted a planning application to redevelop the area to provide some 1,900 new dwellings together with other development. However, the defendants were prevented from granting permission by an impending White Paper – The Future of Air Transport – that raised the possibility of a second runway at Gatwick.
Policy NE19 of the structure plan was the operative development plan policy concerning residential and other development in the vicinity of Gatwick Airport. It supported residential and other noise-sensitive development up to the 66 dB(A) Leq contour so long as adequate sound insulation was provided for development in the 60-66 dB(A) Leq contours. The claimants’ proposals for the NES fully accorded with policy NE19, even if a second runway at Gatwick were developed.
The claimants’ appeal against the defendants’ non-determination of their planning application was recovered by the secretary of state for communities and local government and, in a finely balanced decision, she refused planning permission, inter alia, because the site was not immediately required to meet housing need (the appeal decision). In July 2008, Collins J quashed the secretary of state’s decision to dismiss the claimants’ appeal on the basis that the findings in respect of housing need were perverse and unreasonable. On noise issues, the judge, relying upon policy NE19, said that the problems of noise and a second runway could not alone have justified refusal of permission: see R (on the application of Taylor Wimpey UK) v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government [2008] EWHC 1738 (Admin).
Following that decision and pursuant to section 113 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, the claimants sought to quash parts of the Crawley Borough local development framework core strategy (the core strategy). In particular, they objected to a new key objective in the core strategy that purported to constrain development of the NES beyond the 60 db(A) Leq contour. They argued that such a constraint would severely prejudice them and was unlawful because it failed to take into account policy NE19.
Held: The application was granted.
The defendants had too readily accepted the wholesale conclusions of the appeal decision and had failed to have regard to the highly relevant matter of policy NE19 and its effect upon the particular part of the core strategy relating to noise constraints. By failing to give due consideration to that policy, the key objective adopted in the core strategy had effectively cut across existing national planning policy guidance – PPG 24 – in accordance with which NE19 had been drafted: Bromley London Borough Council v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government [2007] EWHC 2480 (Admin) considered.
The appeal decision had dealt with a specific planning application within a specific temporal context, so that policy NE19 was highly relevant since it had been drafted as the general policy on noise applicable to the whole of West Sussex bu particularly to the NES.
Peter Village QC and Andrew Tabachnik (instructed by MacFarlanes) appeared for the claimants; Mary Cook and Melissa Murphy (instructed by the legal department of Crawley Borough Council) appeared for the defendants.
Eileen O’Grady, barrister
