Council defeats challenge to decision to hold referendum on neighbourhood plan

Swale Borough Council has defeated a High Court challenge to its decision to hold a referendum on a neighbourhood plan.

In Swan Quay LLP, R (On the Application Of) v Swale Borough Council [2017] EWHC 420 (Admin) the claimant alleged that the examiner had failed to provide adequate reasons for his recommendation (adopted by Swale) that the Faversham Creek Neighbourhood Plan should be modified in relation to its proposals for Swan Quay.

It was submitted that the examiner had failed to properly explain intelligibly why the redevelopment proposals endorsed by the submission draft should be abandoned, and in particular why residential development could no longer be part and parcel of any residential redevelopment proposal.

The claimant also complained that the examiner’s use of the term "gentrification", which was not a land use planning term, was incapable of amounting to a land use planning basis for establishing conflict with a policy on the creek in Swale’s Local Plan. It was submitted that it was not capable of being a basis to reject residential redevelopment of the site.

The claimant contended that the court could not be satisfied that neither the examiner nor the defendant council had acted within the powers given to them to modify a neighbourhood plan which has been submitted.

Rejecting the claim, Mr Justice Dove said in a judgment published today [8 March] he was “satisfied that the examiner's reasons were legally adequate and fit for purpose, and make clear the basis upon which he made the modifications, which…. he plainly had power to make.”

The judge added that whilst he accepted that "gentrification" was not a land use planning technical term, in his view it did not need to be; “it is a word which describes the erosion of the legacy of industrial use, and the surroundings of the historic assets associated with that use, by the introduction of a new and historically unprecedented residential use and associated activities”.

It was true, Mr Justice Dove said, that the examiner could have said more. However, the judge said that was not the test, and that the examiner’s conclusions were clear from the reasons given.