Plans for a circa-600 home development on a site regarded as Blackpool’s last substantial area of countryside have won the backing of the Court of Appeal.
In the latest case to centre on the government’s announced intention to abolish regional spatial strategies, the court rejected local woman Angelia Hinds’ challenge to the outline planning permission for 584 new homes, together with shops and a village green, at Marton Moss.
Last March, Justice Langstaff rejected her claim that Blackpool council had been wrong to grant permission for the project in July 2010, after the government announced its plan to scrap the regional spatial strategies that set out housing targets across the country.
She claimed that the government’s decision was a material consideration which should have been taken into account in the decision to grant permission to Kensington Developments.
However, the judge said that the factors that shaped the decision were “plainly locally driven”, and that the decision would be the same even if the government’s regional spatial strategies were scrapped.
The Court of Appeal has now backed the judge’s decision.
Lawyers for Hinds had argued that the judge was wrong to conclude that there was no prospect of a local approach on housing strategy being different from the regional spatial strategy.
She claimed that the council is already considering revising its housing plans for the area, with a report recommending that substantially lower levels of housing are required than those set out in the RSS.
