R Jarvis v London Borough of Croydon and Another Croydon Council Urban Regeneration Vehicle and Another (Interested Parties)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Gilbart |
| Judgment Date | 18 March 2015 |
| Neutral Citation | [2015] EWHC 1419 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | CO/3972/2014 |
| Date | 18 March 2015 |
[2015] EWHC 1419 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Gilbart
CO/3972/2014
CO/5629/2014
and
Ms Annabel Graham Paul (instructed by Richard Buxton) appeared on behalf of the Claimant
Mr Richard Moules (instructed by Pinsent Masons) appeared on behalf of the First Defendant
Mr David Blundell (instructed by Treasury Solicitors) appeared on behalf of the Second Defendant
Mr Reuben Taylor QC (instructed by Addleshaw Goddard) appeared on behalf of the Interested Parties
By these applications Mr Jarvis, who represents an action group in Chipstead, seeks to challenge the grants of planning permission for major housing development at Cane Hill and also a retail scheme at Lion Green Road in the London Borough of Croydon.
Mr Jarvis, and those who he represents, and I am very obliged to them for attending in such numbers this morning, obviously have a great deal of concern for their local area. Mr Jarvis and his group are understandably concerned that there is a great deal of rat running which occurs in the road network to the west of the main London/Brighton A23 road. It occurs in the area generally known as Chipstead. It affects the Chipstead Valley Road where there is a primary school but it also affects a number of other residential roads in the area.
The concern of the residents is that development of the supermarket site, which would gain access from Lion Green Road, would add to the existing problems occurring at junctions on Lion Green Road and stimulate rat running through their area, or I should say stimulate further rat running through their area. So far as the housing site is concerned, that too would have access on to Lion Green Road but also Portnalls Road and there too there is concern about rat running.
The figures put before me by Miss Graham Paul, who appears on behalf of the claimants, was that the housing development would add 400 trips in the pm peak in an hour and 307 per hour in the am peak and that the supermarket development would add 422 two-way trips in the pm peak and in the Saturday morning peak. Miss Graham Paul says that the junctions are saturated, ie, that the ratio of flow to capacity at the junction for vehicles approaching the stop line is all used up.
The case for the applicants is that the original Transport Assessment was inadequate. It contends that it was based upon a computer modelling tool known as TRANSYT which seeks to model the behaviour of junctions which are signalised and, say the claimants, that original analysis was inadequate because TRANSYT is too crude a modelling tool to be able to assess the performance of the junctions properly. Their concern is patently that the effect of further traffic arriving at the junctions would be in such quantities that it would add to the congestion occurring at the junctions and, therefore, make it more likely that drivers would rat run.
There is before the court a witness statement much relied upon by Miss Graham Paul in her application for a stay from Mr Alistair McMurray, who is a highly qualified traffic engineer, who at the relevant time was working for the London Borough of Croydon, which is the Local Highway Authority. In his evidence he describes how when the Transport Assessment was first submitted for the retail food store the Highway Authority raised strong concerns about it. They were concerned, he said, about this, and I quote paragraph 24 of his evidence:
"(24) The Local Highway Authority considered that the highway capacity assessment element of the submitted Transport Assessment could not be relied upon for due comment, however, observations were made based upon the findings contained within the assessment at that time.
(25) The overall assessment depicted that junction performance was expected to improve as a result of the development despite an expected increase in traffic demand. This overall result was considered questionable. The local engineer knowledge and observation told us that the local highway network was already operating above its theoretical capacity limits during both the weekday am and pm peaks as well as, to a lesser but equally notable extent, during the assumed weekend peak.
(26) The Local Highway Authority raised a strong concern that the use of TRANSYT within the assessment was not considered an appropriate tool. It was considered that a TRANSYT model would not accurately model the opposing right turn movement from Chipstead Valley Road."
If one looks at the location plan one can see that the right turn movement is from Chipstead Valley Road, which runs roughly south west to east north east, turning right towards, if I have understood it properly, the A23.
He goes on:
"The Local Highway Authority was concerned that microsimulation via a VISSIM model should have been used for assessment which would ensure specific vehicle demand flows rather than stop line counts to inform the results."
I interpose to point out that VISSIM is one of a number of patent microsimulations models which purport to model the behaviour of individual vehicles within a junction. I assure those listening that many happy hours could be spent examining either TRANSYT or VISSIM if you are at the Planning Bar. I continue:
"Notwithstanding the above the base scenario model has been optimised which gave the Local Highway Authority further cause for concern in that optimisation of an incorrectly calibrated model [and he points out that the model had not been audited] was likely to show considerable spare capacity in the network and in turn would show positive erroneous results through the future modelling scenarios. Additional concerns surrounded the TRANSYT modelling results not illustrating the significant congestion that occurs around the network on a typical day during the peak hours identified and that it showed a more positive result. That went significantly against local engineer knowledge of the local network."
Mr McMurray then set out further concerns which were held by the Local Authority.
He then describes at paragraph 32 onwards that the Local Highway Authority required further work to be done on this and a Supplementary Transport Report was submitted by the applicant. It dealt with, among other matters, trip attraction, car parking provision, trip-type split, trade draw analysis, vehicle draw analysis of the Local Highway Network and supplementary junction modelling. That last topic, of course, went directly to the topic about which concern had already been expressed.
He describes the model and he says this at paragraph 36:
"The results of the supplementary modelling were contained in the applicant's supplementary transport report. The modelling demonstrated that the local highway network and assessed junctions will operate within theoretical capacity limits during both am and pm peak hours."
He refers to a revised and calibrated model which incorporated the effects of both the residential proposal and the retail proposal and then says this at paragraph 38:
"The results of the supplementary junction modelling confirmed, as our local knowledge told us initially, that a number of the arms of the signalised junction were operating at or close to their theoretical capacity limit during the am and pm peak assessment hours."
He then describes how the Local Highway Authority, very understandably, wanted the cumulative impact of the two developments to be considered together.
He then refers to mitigation measures which had been put forward by the applicants and he then says this at paragraph 45:
"The supplementary modelling results confirmed that the Chipstead Valley Road/Lion Green Road signalised junction would continue to operate at a similar level of capacity and efficiency to that of the present day with the development plus communicative development traffic in situ. As such the issue of rat running was intrinsically considered at all stages of assessing the traffic impact upon the local highway network as a result of the proposed development. Similarly the remainder of the 'local highway network of interest' in regards to the application was assessed based upon a robust set of modelling criteria taking the existing local issues into consideration.
(48) The submitted modelling was validated and assessed by both the Council and Transport for London as being robust and valid. The results of the modelling exercise demonstrated sufficiently to the Council that the traffic impact generated as a result of the proposed development would not lead to any material worsening of the existing situation...
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