Judge allows local plan challenge to proceed but on reduced grounds

A High Court judge has rejected most of the objections made by campaign groups to Waverley Borough Council’s local plan and its decision to give planning permission for 1,800 homes at the former Dunsfold airfield.

But a full hearing must be held on how an inspector calculated the number of homes Waverley must take to deal with unmet need from neighbouring Woking.

Objections were raised by local group POW and the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England’s Surrey branch.

Mr Justice Lewis dismissed claims that Waverley and the planning inspector concerned failed to consider environmental constraints in calculating objectively assessed need.

He also confirmed that both the council and the inspector correctly applied the two-stage approach of the National Planning Policy Framework.

A council statement said: “The hearing is not based on the principle of attributing Woking’s unmet need to Waverley but the lawfulness of the Inspector’s reasoning on the issue.”

Leader Julia Potts welcomed the court’s rejection of most of the challenges but said she was disappointed that the case would return to court on a “technical issue”.

“Essentially Waverley is stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Cllr Potts said.

“It is a government requirement to have an adopted plan; to adopt a sound local plan we had to accept the inspector’s modifications, and these are now being called into question by POW Campaign and CPRE Surrey and Waverley has to use taxpayers’ money to defend our position in court.”

The judge dismissed two of POW’s three challenges to the Dunsfold project, but ruled it was arguable that if one of the local plan challenge grounds succeeded then the Dunsfold permission could be called into question.

A challenge to Dunsfold will be taken alongside the full hearing on the local plan.

POW said in a statement that it challenged a requirement that Waverley take an extra 83 new homes a year to meet Woking’s need and argued that the rural area around Dunsfold lacked the infrastructure to support such a large development.

Chair Bob Lees said: “Waverley Borough Council has failed to protect Waverley from unsustainable development, and the secretary of state for housing has failed to comply with Government policy to build houses in the right place: Dunsfold Aerodrome is quite clearly not the right place.”

Mark Smulian