Planning Court judge rejects challenge to decision on contributions by developer to healthcare services
The High Court has dismissed a challenge brought by local amenity campaign Hampden Fields Action Group (HFAG) to Buckinghamshire Council’s decision to grant planning permission for the development of 3,000 homes south of Aylesbury.
Commenting on the case, Saira Kabir Sheikh QC and Michael Brendan Brett of Francis Taylor Building, who acted for the council, said the case marked the first time that the court had ruled on a challenge to the exercise of a local planning authority’s planning judgement as to whether to require cash contributions from developers towards healthcare services.
They noted that National Health Service bodies are increasingly seeking funding through section 106 contributions and the judgment “reinforces that the courts will not easily be persuaded to interfere in local planning authorities’ highly fact and case-sensitive determination as to whether such requests meet the three-part test in regulation 122 of the Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations 2010”.
Mrs Justice Lang said in her judgment: “The issue in the claim is whether the council acted lawfully in deciding to grant outline planning permission on the basis that the only health provision made was a doctors’ surgery, to be provided on site.”
This accorded with a section 106 agreement, but the NHS had asked for larger medical facilities to serve the increased population.
HFAG argued that Buckinghamshire’s decision that the proposed accommodation for doctors was adequate was unlawful because it failed to take into account relevant considerations, took into account irrelevant considerations and was irrational.
The group also argued that officers’ advice that health provision would be secured through the section 106 agreement “was significantly misleading” and that members acted on misleading advice from officers.
Lang J said: “In my judgment, there was ample material to justify the advice given by officers to members, and the decisions made by the committee, and subsequently by the delegated officers, in the exercise of their planning judgment.
“Officers and members considered [the NHS’s] representations and requests with an appropriate degree of care, but they did not accept them, and were not obliged to do so.”
She said the heart of the NHS’s representations was that the developer should be required to mitigate the adverse impacts of the development on health services.
‘However, the council did not accept [its] assessment of the extent of any mitigation required.”
The judge dismissed a further three grounds which argued that officers misled the planning committee over NHS secondary and tertiary services.
She concluded: “I agree with the council’s submissions that, on close examination,[HFAG’s] case amounts to no more than thinly-veiled disagreements with the council’s lawful exercise of planning judgment.”
Mark Smulian
