Windsor and Maidenhead Royal Borough Council have failed to block a residential development by Barratt Homes Ltd on the site of the former Royal Ascot Hotel after the High Court upheld the decision of a DETR inspector granting permission for the construction of 150 flats on the site.
The council originally refused permission for the development of the site, to the north of the Heatherwood Roundabout, at the junction of London Road and Windsor Road, Ascot, on the ground that it would be “prejudicial to the amenities of adjacent land uses and damaging to the character and amenities of the area”.
Although the council accepted that the site was an appropriate one for residential development, it believed that the size, mass and bulk of the scheme, in particular the height and the number of units proposed, would be a gross overdevelopment of the site and excessive in scale and density.
However, the councils decision was subsequently reversed on a successful appeal by Barratt, the inspector ruling, in June 2000, that the development could go ahead.
Challenging that ruling, Graham Stoker argued on behalf of the council that the inspector had failed to provide adequate and intelligible reasons for his decision.
Mr Stoker contended that insufficient information was given to enable the council to understand why the inspector considered a five-storey block of flats to be compatible with, and not harmful to, the area to the south-east of the site, which consisted of open land and generally low-rise and inconspicuous buildings.
Dismissing the challenge, Crane J said he was satisfied that the inspector had been right to conclude that the site had to be seen in the context of the Heatherwood roundabout, the surrounding developments and land uses to the south-east.
He had been entitled to find that the height proposed would be appropriate in scale to the site and to the open nature of the space that would be overlooked by the development. The judge also found that the reasons given by the inspector were not flawed in a way that would justify quashing his decision.
The council were ordered to pay the DETRs legal costs of £3,000.
Windsor and Maidenhead Royal Borough Council v Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions Queens Bench Division: Administrative Court (Crane J) 20 November 2000
Graham Stoker (instructed by the solicitor to Windsor and Maidenhead Royal Borough Council) appeared for the claimants; John Litton (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first defendant; Stephen Morgan (instructed by Mills & Reeve, of Cambridge) appeared for the second defendant (Barratt).
PLS News 21/11/00
