Minerals local plan – Potential aggregate sites – Applicant’s site recommended for inclusion in plan – Council rejecting planning officer’s recommendation – Council not giving reasons – Applicant subsequently withdrawing objection – Lengthy planning process – Council hearing objections, including those of applicant, to final plan – Applicant seeking to quash modifications to plan
The applicant, a leading concern in the aggregates business, wished to promote its site at Lugg Valley as a potential site for sand and gravel extraction. In 1990 the respondents put forward a consultation draft minerals local plan (the plan), one of its main purposes being to identify adequate new sites. 24 such sites were identified, including Lugg Valley, and the respondent’s planning officer recommended that, despite some objections, the site be retained in the plan. The respondent’s planning committee (the committee), met on February 28 1991 where the press and public were excluded. The committee did not accept the planning officer’s recommendation to retain Lugg Valley. In September 1991 the revised form local plan was deposited and the applicant made a “duly-made” objection to the ommission of its site, but later withdrew that objection. A lengthy and complex planning process followed.
In April 1994 the revised MPG 6 was published. As a result, the plan had to make provision for 25.908m tonnes of sand and gravel and subsequently the committee approved proposed modifications, deposited in January 1995. The nature and detail of this reassessment remained “shrouded in mystery”. In February the applicant lodged objections referring, inter alia, to the fact that the reassessment had not been published and there had been no opportunity to object to it. In June 1995 the committee met to consider objections. The second inquiry took place between November 1995 and January 1996. The inspector’s conclusions, inter alia, were: (1) that the plan be further modified by incorporating details of additional preferred areas which, on re-assessment, passed the “sieve” test of the revised methodology; and (2) that proposed modifications be published in the council’s response in order to give those interested an opportunity to support or object. During September 1996 consultation took place as to the possible inclusion of Lugg Valley as a preferred area for extraction, to which there was extensive objection. The committee did not include it in the plan and despite the applicant’s detailed representantions, the plan was adopted on April 14 1997. The applicant sought, under section 287 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, to quash part of the plan in so far as it had been adopted “without further modification”.
Held The application was dismissed.
1. The respondent had interpreted correctly both the advice in MPG 6 and the inspector’s conclusions, and accordingly, the adequacy of their reasons could not be further attacked.
2. The fact that, at the outset of the consultation process, the planning officer had expressed his own view that Lugg Valley passed the sieve test did not bind the respondents, and hence did not trigger any necessity for the inclusion of the site by way of a proposed modificiation. The respondents, had the right, in the circumstances, not to make a further proposed modification. There being no further proposed modification, the question of a further inquiry into objections did not arise. The respondents had not acted unfairly.
Jeremy Cahill (instructed by the solicitor to RMC Group Services Ltd) appeared for the applicant; John Hobson (instructed by the solicitor to Hereford and Worcester County Couuncil) appeared for the respondents.
