Judge quashes decision by minister over dismissal of planning conditions
A judge has quashed a decision by Communities Secretary Sajid Javid to overrule an inspector and refuse planning permission for a housing development in Cheshire.
The case turned on conditions proposed by developer Darnhall Estate concerning the use of local labour and materials.
Javid held that these were not relevant planning considerations and, as a result, he reduced the scheme’s economic benefits and rejected it.
Darnhall’s application to build 184 homes on a 6.5 hectares greenfied site on the edge of Winsford was rejected by Cheshire West & Chester Council on grounds of prematurity ahead of publication of the Winsford Neighbourhood Plan, despite securing support from officers.
The developer appealed and the case went to inquiry where an inspector recommended acceptance subject to conditions.
The Communities Secretary then reopened the inquiry, saying he had received representations that material considerations had changed, as the neighbourhood plan and the council’s local plan had been adopted in the meantime.
Danrhall then proposed new conditions that it would increase the level of affordable housing from 30% to 40%, allocate 10% of homes for self-build, require the market homes to be built by smaller local builders, spend 20% of construction cost on local procurement and employ half its workforce from Cheshire.
The inspector again recommended acceptance but Javid refused permission, saying that new conditions offered were not necessary to make the decision acceptable in planning terms, and breached various requirements of the criteria now listed under NPPF 203.
In Verdin (t/a the Darnhall Estate) v The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government & Ors [2017] EWHC 2079 (Admin) Robin Purchas QC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge, upheld three of Darnhall’s 12 grounds of appeal and quashed the decision. The three concerned local training employment, and procurement and use of local builders.
Javid’s rejection of the training and employment condition showed “absence of evidence of difficulty in enforcement or any objection on the grounds of lack of precision”, and was both irrational and inconsistent with the acceptance of similar conditions on other appeals, the judge said.
His finding was “reinforced by the absence of any rational explanation to support the reasons submitted to this court”.
He held Javid had had “no rational basis to say that it would not be practicably possible to enforce” the condition on using local builders and there was no evidence that the secretary of state “had any rational or cogent basis” on which to reject the procurement condition.
Mark Smulian
