Dla Delivery Ltd v (1) Baroness Cumberlege of Newick
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Justice Lindblom,Lord Justice Moylan,Lord Justice Peter Jackson |
| Judgment Date | 08 June 2018 |
| Neutral Citation | [2018] EWCA Civ 1305 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Docket Number | Case No: C1/2017/2379 |
| Date | 08 June 2018 |
and
[2018] EWCA Civ 1305
Lord Justice Lindblom
Lord Justice Moylan
and
Lord Justice Peter Jackson
Case No: C1/2017/2379
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
PLANNING COURT
MR JOHN HOWELL Q.C. (sitting as a Deputy Judge of the High Court)
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Mr Christopher Young Q.C. and Ms Thea Osmund Smith (instructed by Irwin Mitchell LLP) for the Appellant
Ms Heather Sargent (instructed by DAC Beachcroft LLP) for the Respondents
The Interested Party did not appear and was not represented.
Hearing dates: 28 February and 1 March 2018
Introduction
Did the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, when determining an appeal against the refusal of planning permission for a development of housing, err in law in failing to take into account a recent decision of his own – even though he had not been asked to do so? That is the main question in this appeal.
The appellant, DLA Delivery Ltd., appeals against the order of Mr John Howell Q.C., sitting as a deputy judge of the High Court, dated 4 August 2017, by which he allowed the application of the respondents, Baroness Cumberlege of Newick and her husband, Mr Patrick Cumberlege, under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, challenging the decision of the interested party, the Secretary of State, in a decision letter dated 23 November 2016, to allow an appeal by DLA Delivery under section 78 of the 1990 Act. The section 78 appeal was against the decision of Lewes District Council, as local planning authority, to refuse DLA Delivery's application for outline planning permission for a development of up to 50 dwellings on land at Mitchelswood Farm, Allington Road, Newick. Baroness Cumberlege and her husband are residents of Newick and members of the Newick Village Society. They were objectors to DLA Delivery's proposal.
The section 78 appeal was heard by an inspector at an inquiry in February 2016. Newick Village Society appeared at the inquiry, opposing the appeal. After the inquiry, on 24 May 2016, the Secretary of State recovered the appeal for his own determination, under section 79 of the 1990 Act, because it involved residential development of more than 10 units in an area where a “qualifying body” had submitted “a neighbourhood plan proposal” to the local planning authority or a neighbourhood plan had been made. In his report, dated 5 August 2016, the inspector recommended that the appeal be allowed and planning permission granted, subject to conditions. In his decision letter the Secretary of State largely agreed with the inspector's conclusions and accepted his recommendation. One of his conclusions was that saved Policy CT1 of the Lewes District Local Plan – which required development to be “contained within … Planning Boundaries” – was “out of date”, and that the policy for the “presumption in favour of sustainable development” in paragraph 14 of the National Planning Policy Framework (“the NPPF”) was therefore engaged.
The Secretary of State's decision was challenged on two grounds: first, that he had failed to take into account as a material consideration his own conclusion, in a decision letter dated 19 September 2016 – some nine weeks earlier – dismissing an appeal for a proposed development of housing at Broyle Gate Farm, Lewes Road, Ringmer, that Policy CT1 was “up-to-date for the purposes of this appeal”; and secondly, that he had made a material error of fact in treating the appeal site as lying outside the 7km “zone of influence” for the Ashdown Forest Special Protection Area (“SPA”) and Special Area of Conservation (“SAC”), or had unlawfully granted planning permission without imposing a condition to ensure that the new housing would be built outside the “zone of influence”. Before the hearing, on 14 March 2017, the Secretary of State submitted to judgment on the first ground. However, DLA Delivery sought to defend his decision. The council played no part in the proceedings. The judge upheld the application on both grounds. He also granted permission to appeal.
The issues in the appeal
In granting permission to appeal the judge identified three questions for this court. Those three questions were modified somewhat in the course of argument before us. As they emerged from counsel's submissions, the issues are these:
(1) Did the judge apply the correct test in law in considering whether the Secretary of State's decision was unlawful because he failed to take into account his conclusion on Policy CT1 in his decision letter on the Ringmer appeal?
(2) Did the Secretary of State err in law in failing to take into account his decision in the Ringmer appeal?
(3) Did the Secretary of State misapply regulation 68(3) of the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2010 (“the Habitats regulations”)?
Policy CT1
The relevant history of the development plan is set out in the judgment in the court below (paragraphs 15 to 23). By the time of the Secretary of State's decision in the Newick appeal, it comprised the Lewes District Local Plan, Part 1, Joint Core Strategy 2010–2030 (adopted in May 2016), certain saved policies of the Lewes District Local Plan (adopted in March 2003) and the Newick Neighbourhood Plan (adopted in July 2015). Upon the adoption of the joint core strategy some of the policies of the local plan that had previously been saved by the Secretary of State in 2007 were replaced. Others, including Policy CT1, were not.
Policy CT1 states:
“Planning Boundary and Key Countryside Policy
CT1 Development will be contained within the Planning Boundaries as shown on the Proposals Map. Planning permission will not be granted for development outside the Planning Boundaries, other than for that specifically referred to in other chapters of the Plan or listed below:
…
(b) new residential development in the Countryside (Policy RES6 & RES7)
…
(e) affordable homes exceptions sites (Policy RES10)
…
(h) any other development in the countryside for which a specific policy reference is made [elsewhere] in the Plan
…
The retention of the open character of the countryside is of heightened importance where it separates settlements and prevents their coalescence. ….”
Among the settlements for which planning boundaries were defined on the proposals map were Newick, Ringmer and Ringmer (The Broyle). Mitchelswood Farm is outside the planning boundary for Newick.
The Secretary of State's conclusions on Policy CT1 in the Ringmer appeal
The proposal in the Ringmer appeal was for a development of up to 70 dwellings at Broyle Gate Farm. The Secretary of State recovered the appeal for his own determination on 6 October 2015, because it related to proposed residential development of more than 10 units in an area where a “qualifying body” had submitted a neighbourhood plan. The inquiry was held in May 2016. The inspector's report is dated 15 June 2016.
Under the heading “Planning boundaries”, the inspector said there was “no dispute that the housing element of the proposals would be outside the planning boundary for Ringmer and therefore contrary to retained Policy CT1”, and “[the] question of whether this policy should be regarded as up-to-date was a controversial matter …”. The “residential element” of the proposal, was, he said, “a very substantial element of the scheme as a whole”. It followed that “the scheme as a whole should be regarded as being in conflict with Policy CT1” (paragraph 10.7). Although the Ringmer Neighbourhood Plan “[did] not define settlement boundaries, except in relation to its own allocations …, it [was] to be read together with the JCS so the Policy CT1 planning boundaries could be taken to apply, as far as still relevant”. Policy 4.1 “[sought] to resist development outside planning boundaries, where there would be an adverse effect on the countryside or rural landscape, unless it can be demonstrated that the benefits of the proposals would outweigh the adverse effects. …” (paragraph 10.8).
In a subsequent passage of his report (in paragraphs 10.39 to 10.44), under the heading “Whether relevant policies for the supply of housing are up-to-date”, the inspector concluded:
“10.39 The appellant agreed that the Council is able to demonstrate a five year supply of deliverable housing sites in accordance with the requirements of the Framework. It was not suggested that there is any objection in principle to a planning boundary policy such as Policy CT1. Nevertheless, the appellant argued that the Policy CT1 planning boundaries should be regarded as out-of-date on the basis that they were drawn in the context of the LP03 for the purposes of meeting housing requirements up to 2011. Further, it was argued that the boundaries would not meet housing requirements up to 2030, that they would need to be varied to accommodate the JCS strategic allocations and neighbourhood plan allocations and that they are bound to be reviewed in the LPPt2. …
10.40 The first point to note is that the CT1 planning boundaries have been retained in the JCS, pending review through the LPPt2. Although originally defined in relation to the LP03, they must now be considered in the context of a development plan context which also includes:
• the JCS strategic allocations
• the JCS planned growth targets for specified settlements
• neighbourhood plan allocations[.]
At the Inquiry the Council accepted that the JCS Inspector did not find the retained policies sound in the sense of examining them individually against an evidence base. However, he found the JCS as a whole sound, including its provisions to save certain...
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