The Town and Country Planning Appeals (Determination by Inspectors) (Inquiries Procedure) (England) Rules 2000 (“the Rules”) set out the procedures to be followed where a planning appeal is determined by an inspector after holding a public local inquiry. Rule 7(1) enables the inspector to notify the statutory parties in writing before the inquiry of matters about which he particularly wishes to be informed for the purposes of his consideration of the appeal. Rule 15 obliges the local planning authority and the appellant to prepare an agreed statement of common ground. Rule 16(2) obliges the inspector, at the start of the inquiry, to identify what are, in his opinion, the main issues to be considered.
In Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government v Hopkins Developments Ltd [2014] EWCA Civ 470, the Court of Appeal allowed an appeal against a decision of the High Court quashing an inspector’s decision on the ground that the inspector had acted in breach of the rules of natural justice. The judge at first instance had concluded that the inspector had relied one two matters which she had not initially identified as main issues. The Court of Appeal reversed the judge’s decision, holding that the two issues were live issues on the evidence, and that the inspector was not confined by her original stated opinion as to what were the main issues in the planning appeal.
Jackson LJ derived the following principles from his review of earlier authorities.
(1) Any party to a planning inquiry is entitled (a) to know the case which he has to meet and (b) to have a reasonable opportunity to adduce evidence and make submissions in relation to that opposing case.
(2) If there is a procedural unfairness that materially prejudices a party to a planning inquiry, that may be a good ground for quashing the inspector’s decision.
(3) The Rules are designed to assist in achieving the object of the first principle above, to avoid the pitfall of the second principle above and to promote efficiency. Nevertheless, they are not a complete code for achieving procedural fairness.
(4) A rule 7(1) statement or a rule 16(2) statement does not bind the inspector to disregard evidence on other issues, nor does it oblige him to give the parties an update on his current thinking.
(5) The inspector will consider any significant issues raised by third parties, even if those issues are not in dispute between the main parties, and the main parties should deal with those issues unless and until the inspector states that they need not do so.
(6) If a main party resiles from a matter agreed in the rule 15 statement of common ground, the inspector must give the other party a reasonable opportunity to deal with the new issue that has emerged.
John Martin
