Council in court challenge after inspector grants permission for 90-home scheme

West Berkshire Council has launched a High Court challenge with a view to having quashed a planning inspector’s decision to grant planning permission for a 90-home development.

In June last year HDD Burghfield Common Limited applied for planning permission for up to 129 dwellings at the site at Firlands Farm in Burghfield Common.

The local authority refused the application in October 2014.

During the appeal process the development was amended to 90 dwellings and was approved by an inspector in July 2015.

West Berkshire said it was “of the view that the inspector has failed to apply the correct planning tests in determining the appeal and the council has been substantially prejudiced as a result.”

Cllr Alan Law, Portfolio Holder for Planning at West Berkshire, said: "It is very important that planning inspectors are challenged when we believe they get things so wrong that it prejudices the council in determining other planning applications for housing. 

“The council has worked hard over many years to get the Core Strategy Adopted following stringent Government guidelines. We are currently doing this again, following unprecedented evidence gathering and public consultation, with the forthcoming Housing Site Allocations Development Plan Document. This will complete the picture for West Berkshire regarding future housing.”

Cllr Law added: “We simply cannot allow all that effort and proper process to be totally disregarded and overturned by an individual planning inspector.  We owe that duty to the people of West Berkshire who would not expect any less from us.”

Last month West Berkshire – together with Reading Borough Council – won a High Court challenge over Government proposals for a threshold on the size of developments beneath which planning authorities should not seek affordable housing contributions through section 106 agreements.