UK Coal fails to overturn North Warwickshire local plan

UK Coal has failed in its High Court bid to overturn the North Warwickshire local plan, which did not earmark a former colliery site for residential development. Wyn Williams J has rejected UK Coal’s claim that North Warwickshire Borough Council had failed to give adequate reasons for not including the site and had thereby caused it “genuine and substantial prejudice”. In 2004, during the course of an inquiry into a draft local plan for North Warwickshire, UK Coal registered an objection in respect Orchard Colliery, which was within the settlement limits of the plan, but which had not been allocated for residential development. In August 2005, the inspector conducting the inquiry for the council recommended that the site was suitable for development given the shortfall in residential housing. However, the council rejected the inspector’s recommendation on that point, stating that the shortfall was inconsequential and insignificant. In July 2006, the council adopted the North Warwickshire local plan and UK Coal applied to the High Court to quash those parts of the plan that omitted its site from residential development. It submitted that the council had erred in law by not giving adequate reasons for the rejection of the inspector’s recommendation. Dismissing the application, Wyn Williams J held that although the council had not given adequate reasons for its rejection, that failure had not caused UK Coal “genuine and substantial prejudice”. UK Coal Mining Ltd v North Warwickshire Borough Council Administrative Court (Wyn Williams J) 17 January 2008 John Hobson QC and Andrew Fraser-Urquhart (instructed by Nabarro Nathanson, of Sheffield) appeared for the claimant; Ian Dove QC and Jenny Wigley (instructed by the legal department of North Warwickshire Borough Council) appeared for the defendant.