| SPOTLIGHT |
Local authorities could face a series of legal challenges after yesterday’s High Court ruling that Communities Secretary Eric Pickles had acted outside his statutory powers when he abolished regional spatial strategies, leading lawyers have warned.
Housebuilder CALA Homes successfully challenged the government’s move, arguing that it had left a policy gap in which there were no criteria against which development proposals could be judged.
Trowers & Hamlins partner Andrew Barnard said: “The High Court's ruling means local authorities will for the immediate future have to reconsider their housing planning strategy.
“If they do not take into account the housing targets within regional spatial strategies when determining planning applications for housing schemes they could potentially face legal challenges against their decisions.”
Barnard warned of potential confusion for local authorities as they will in the immediate future have to deal with two sets of advice – “one from the High Court stating that the government's decision to scrap regional spatial strategies was unlawful and therefore the regional housing targets within these strategies should still be considered when determining planning applications and a message from the government that it will legislate to scrap regional spatial strategies as soon as possible.”
The Communities Secretary has said that the ruling “changes very little”, with the Localism Bill set to remove the previous administration’s regional strategies.
However, Barnard suggested that councils are unlikely to be able to ignore the judgement, not least because it could take a long time for the government to get any bill onto the statute book. “There will be a period where local authorities face uncertainty,” he said.
Stuart Andrews, head of planning at Eversheds, agreed, arguing that the government’s claim missed the point. “We believe it will take a great deal of time to bring this legislation onto the statute books and even longer for local authorities to act on its provisions,” he said.
“In the interim, the reintroduction of the Regional Strategies will ensure that their content will guide and direct development under the statutory requirements of s38 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and no amount of government statements or policy making can unsettle that position.”
Andrews argued that the best the government can do will be to play down the function of Regional Guidance, “but even this approach cannot overcome those circumstances where regional policy identifies a shortfall of housing land supply and a proposed scheme will remedy that position.”
He also claimed that housing targets are needed, whether they are driven at a local or regional level. “Pickles’ decision simply removed housing targets and put nothing back in their place, at a time when the need for more housing has never been more acute.”
Trowers’ Barnard suggested that housing associations would welcome the ruling. “They argue that without housing targets house building would slow even further,” he said. “What housing associations would really want to see now is that any legislation on housing targets gets a full and proper consultation rather than just being rushed through Parliament.”
But he acknowledged a fear among housing associations that local authorities “will just drag their feet” on housing planning decisions until the legislation is passed.
