Inspector holding inquiry into draft local plan – Inspector recommending site be allocated to accommodate 200 dwellings – Council adopting recommendation subject to advanced provision of road infrastructure – Application to quash relevant part of local plan – Application dismissed
The applicant owned six fields extending over 32 ha at Wootton Fields, Newport Pagnell Road, Northampton (the site), on the south-east side of Northampton, adjacent to the B526 Newport Pagnell Road. The six fields could provide for up to 800 homes and three of the fields, totalling 14 ha, could provide, depending on access considerations, for 350 homes or 200 homes. The deposit draft South Northamptonshire local plan did not allocate the site for development, but did allocate nearby Grange Park, which could provide for 1,000 homes. The applicant objected and appeared at the local plan inquiry. The inspector concluded that the allocation at Grange Park should be 800, not 1,000 homes, and he recommended that the site be allocated to accommodate 200 dwellings to make up the shortfall. The respondent council accepted the recommendation to accommodate 200 dwellings on the site, but resolved that there should be advanced provision of road infrastructure on the ground that the inspector had only taken into consideration the highway capacity of the road network in the immediate vicinity of the site, and not the wider highway implication on the B526, the Queen Eleanor’s junction and Wootton Village. The local plan was amended accordingly.
The applicant objected, arguing that the site could be developed without the provision of the specified road infrastructure, and applied under section 287 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 for the relevant part of the local plan to be quashed. The applicant submitted that the council had not grappled with the inspector’s reasoning, but were merely repeating the stance which they had adopted at the inquiry in breach of the Town and Country Planning (Development) Regulations 1991. It was also contended that the council had failed to take into account material considerations in so allocating the site, namely the conclusion of the inspector that the applicant’s land could be developed without impediment or delay and that it was free from infrastructure constraints.
Held The application was dismissed.
1. The council’s reasons for adding a requirement for advance provision of road infrastructure were entirely proper and adequate in the circumstances and accordingly there was nothing perverse in their approach. The requirement was essential if there was not to be overloading of the Queen Eleanor’s junction and aggravated “rat-running” through Wootton Village.
2. It was impossible to say that the council failed to have regard to the conclusion of the inspector that the land could be developed without impediment or delay and that it was free from infrastructure constraints. They had paid express regard to the inspector’s conclusion, but had disagreed with it for adequate, proper and good reasons: Miller v Wycombe District Council [1997] JPL 951 and Stirk v Bridgnorth District Council (1996) 73 P&CR 439, distinguished.
Meyric Lewis (instructed by Cameron McKenna) appeared for the applicants; Graham Stoker (instructed by the solicitor to South Northamptonshire District Council) appeared for the first respondents.
