City council concedes defeat after judge quashes open land planning permissions

The Mayor of Liverpool has said the city council will accept a High Court ruling quashing its grant of planning permissions for a scheme including the building on an area of open land of 39 new dwellings and the conversion of a historic house into 12 apartments.

The planning permissions at the centre of Liverpool Open and Green Spaces Community Interest Company, R (On the Application Of) v Liverpool City Council [2019] EWHC 55 (Admin) also involved the proposed relocation and laying out of a miniature railway with associated buildings and parking.

The site for these proposed developments was an area of open land at Calderstones Park, Liverpool.

Liverpool Open and Green Spaces (LOGS) CIC was concerned to prevent the developments which, it said, would unlawfully change the character of the park.

The judge, Mr Justice Kerr, upheld the claimant’s ground of challenge that the local planning authority had not carried out properly its duty under section 66(1) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, under which it must have special regard to the desirability of preserving the building or its setting or any features of special architectural or historic interest which it possesses.

Mr Justice Kerr noted in particular that the "strong conservation objections" of the conservation team to the proposal to build three new detached houses within the grounds were not mentioned in the officer’s report.

A balanced report would have summarised the view of the conservation team as a negative internal consultation response counterbalancing the relatively positive ones from highways, environmental health and the drainage engineer, he added.

Mr Justice Kerr found separately there was a clear conflict between the proposals and policy OE3 in the Unitary Development Plan which says the city council will “protect and improve the open character, landscape, recreational and ecological quality of the Green Wedges at Calderstones / Woolton and Otterspool”. The officer’s report had been wrong to conclude otherwise, he said.

Responding to the ruling, the Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, said: “The first thing to say is that the Harthill scheme is dead. It will not be resurrected. In any form.

“I want the campaigners and all the local residents to know I have been listening to their concerns.”

Ned Westaway and Charles Streeten of Francis Taylor Building appeared for LOGS on the different grounds of challenge, instructed by E. Rex Makin & Co.