Court quashes grant of planning permission over failure to give reasons

The High Court has quashed planning permission granted by Babergh District Council against the advice of its officers.

Local resident Clive Gare brought the case after the council gave permission to developer Lewis Morgan to build six homes in the village of Hartest  - near Bury St Edmunds - despite an earlier application having been overturned by the High Court.

In Gare, R (On the Application Of) v Babergh District Council [2019] EWHC 2041 Martin Rodger QC, who heard the case, said the application was to build the homes on a 0.4 hectares site outside the built-up area boundary Hartest but within the village’s conservation area and in a special landscape area.

The application was determined by the planning committee in February 2018 when it granted planning permission against officers' advice.

The only reasons given were in the meeting’s minutes: “The proposal represented sustainable development which would support existing services and that there would be benefits to this hinterland village because of the type and scale of housing proposed, particularly for those wishing to downsize.”

Mr Gare successfully challenged this by judicial review on grounds which included a failure to give proper, intelligible and adequate reasons and misdirection in relation to a planning policy.

Permission was quashed by the High Court in June 2018 and the project went back to the planning committee for redetermination in December 2018.

Officers continued to recommend that planning permission be refused but the councillors again gave consent.

Mr Rodger quashed the planning permission on the grounds that Babergh had failed to give reasons for the decision and failed to determine whether the proposal complied with its development plan. He rejected four other grounds.

He said: “I find that the minutes do not clearly identify the views of [project supporter] Councillor Barrett on the extent of the conflict with the development plan, or on the extent of the benefit required to outweigh it, at least as far as the issue of connectivity is concerned.

“To the extent that those recorded views can be regarded as the reasons of the Committee, they are not sufficiently clear to demonstrate that the s.38(6) duty has been complied with.”

Mr Rodger rejected a call by Babergh to withhold relief in accordance with s.31(2A) Senior Courts Act 1981 because the council would have reached the same decision if properly directed.

“Because it is not possible to know by what route the council arrived at its decision it is also impossible to conclude that it is highly likely it would have resolved to grant planning permission if it had properly directed itself,” he ruled.

Mark Smulian