High Court judge refuses permission for legal challenge over planning permission for 159-home scheme

A local resident has lost an attempt to judicially review Oxford City Council over its planning consent for 159 new homes in Marston.

Peyton Davies brought a renewed oral application for judicial review before HHJ Karen Walden-Smith, sitting as a judge of the High Court, arguing that Oxford failed to identify that a pumping station in the proposed development was a building and whether it was therefore appropriate development under the local plan and the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF);

The second ground argued was that Oxford failed to consider whether the pumping station, attenuation pond and access ways conflicted with the inclusion of the land within green belt. A third ground argued the council irrationally failed to consider the spatial aspect of openness.

These had all been deemed unarguable on the papers and HHJ Walden-Smith said her task was to consider afresh whether there was an arguable case that there was a material defect in the officer’s report.

In Davies, R (On the Application Of) v Oxford City Council [2022] EWHC 2883 (Admin) she said: “On a fair reading of the report as a whole the members of the planning committee of [Oxford] were not materially misled and the decision is not an unlawful one by reason of the pumping station not being identified as a building.

“Even if that were the case, permission to appeal is refused by reason of the application of section 31(3D) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 as planning permission would still have been granted as the pumping station could have been constructed by Thames Water pursuant to permitted development rights.”

The impact of the pumping station, attenuation pond and access ways were considered and conclusions reached which were rational and reasonable and so the second ground was unarguable, the judge said.

On the third ground the reasons given in the report were “succinct, [but] they were sufficient to enable the claimant to understand the reasoning for the decision” and that too was unarguable, HHJ Walden-Smith concluded.

Mark Smulian