A leading planning judge has warned potential claimants to “think long and hard” before bringing “legalistic and nit-picking” planning challenges to court.
The comments were made by Sullivan J as he rejected moves to obtain permission for additional staff car parking on a site in Newton Abbot.
Excalibur Management Services Ltd had sought to quash an inspectors decision backing Carrick District Councils refusal of planning permission for the scheme. The inspector held that the development would have a significant effect upon the rural location, and would be likely to have adverse consequences on the health of adjoining trees, resulting in additional harm to the character and appearance of the countryside.
Excalibur challenged that decision on a number of grounds, but all were rejected by Sullivan J. The judge said: “This is yet another example of a legalistic and nit-picking approach to a decision letter that is perfectly plain on the merits.”
He ruled that applicants seeking to challenge an inspector’s decision should always stand back and consider the letter as a whole, and ask whether there was something odd about the decision.
If the answer was that there was nothing odd, then, he said, “as in this case, the applicant should think long and hard about mounting a challenge”.
He said that inspectors were not required to rehearse every scrap of reasoning in their decision letters, and were not obliged to repeat in each paragraph the points that they had made in the preceding paragraphs. Any other result, he said, “would lead to decision letters of inordinate length”.
Excalibur Management Services Ltd v Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions and another Queen’s Bench Division: Administrative Court (Sullivan J) 21 October 2002.
Martin Edwards (instructed by Ralph & Co, of Newquay) appeared for the claimant; James Strachan (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first defendant; the second defendants, Carrick District Council, did not appear and were not represented.
PLS News 22/10/02
