R John Corrie v Suffolk County Council St Edmundsbury Borough Council and Others (Interested Parties)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Cranston |
| Judgment Date | 22 July 2014 |
| Neutral Citation | [2014] EWHC 2490 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | Case No: CO/17293/2013 |
| Date | 22 July 2014 |
[2014] EWHC 2490 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Cranston
Case No: CO/17293/2013
and
Jenny Wigley (instructed by Richard Buxton Solicitors ) for the Claimant
Paul Stinchcombe QC and Jonathan Moffett (instructed by Suffolk Legal) for the Defendant
Hearing dates: 9 July 2014
I INTRODUCTION
In this judicial review the claimant challenges a grant of planning permission by the defendant, Suffolk County Council ("the County Council"), dated 24 October 2013. The planning permission authorises the construction of a development for dealing with waste on a site at Rougham Hill, Bury St Edmunds. Permission to apply for judicial review was granted by Collins J on 18 March 2014.
The County Council is both the waste authority and the local waste planning authority for the area in which the site is located. In effect it was granting planning permission to itself as the waste authority to undertake the development on the site. The claimant is a local resident, who is acting individually and on behalf of a group of local residents, including a councillor of St Edmundsbury Borough Council ("the Borough Council"), Cllr Stamp. The first Interested Party, the Borough Council, is the local planning authority for the area in which the site is located, but because it is not the waste planning authority it had no hand in the decision on the planning application. It strongly objects to the waste development. The second Interested Party, Hopkins Homes Ltd, is a developer which is interested in an adjacent area to the south of Rougham Hill which it wishes to develop for housing. It has rights over 50 of the 70 hectares in the northern area of the Greenfield land to the south of Rougham Hill intended for development under the Borough Council's planning policy BV7. It is in the process of preparing an environmental statement and expects to make an application for outline planning permission in November 2014.
II BACKGROUND
The site
The site is an area of approximately 1.2 hectares and is used by an existing household waste recycling centre ("HWRC"), with the rest being vacant land. It is located to the south east of Bury St Edmunds, on Rougham Hill, immediately to the south of the busy A14, next to its junction with the A134, and adjacent to a lorry park. (The A14 is a dual carriageway and part of the trunk road network which links Ipswich and Felixstowe.) The existing HWRC has been in operation since 1981 and is leased by Suffolk Council from the Borough Council. The site is partly screened by trees and a perimeter hedgerow but there is little or no perimeter vegetation screening along the southern boundary. There are no other household waste recycling sites serving the immediate area, with the nearest being approximately 12 miles away, and another 15 miles away at Mildenhall.
The closest residential dwellings to the site at present are approximately 200m away. The claimant's home is 600m away. Within 200m of the site, on the other side of the A14, is a Sainsbury supermarket. There is also a small industrial park close by with about twelve units and a government laboratory. Greenfield land is immediately to the south of the site.
Planning policies
The St Edmundsbury Local Development Framework, Core Strategy, December 2010, policy CS11, provides that the general area of south-east Bury St Edmunds is a location for long-term strategic growth. It states that as part of this there are to be 1250 homes of mixed tenure and size, including affordable homes. However, "the actual amount of development will be determined by environmental and infrastructure capacity considerations and the preparation and adoption of detailed masterplans …" Policy NE 5 of the St Edmundsbury Replacement Local Plan 2016, "Environmental Quality", provides that noise generating development will not be permitted if it would adversely affect the users of existing or proposed noise-sensitive development.
Bury St Edmunds Vision 2031 is a draft development plan document dated June 2013. It recalls that the Borough Council's core strategy identifies south-east Bury St Edmunds as an area for strategic growth but did not define specific boundaries. Concept statements had been prepared and policies BV3-BV7 now define the specific boundaries for each of the strategic sites. These were adopted by the Council in May 2013 and do not form part of the Bury St Edmunds Vision 2031 but are contained in appendices. Before development can commence, Bury St Edmund Vision 2031 states, "a masterplan will need to be prepared and adopted for each site … The content of each masterplan will have to accord with the Local Plan and the content of site concept statements".
On the same day as the decision under challenge, Bury St Edmunds Vision 2031 was submitted to a local plan inquiry. The planning inspector endorsed the allocation of 70 hectares of land immediately to the south of the site for a strategic housing development. The Borough Council has yet to consider the planning inspector's report.
Appendix 10 to Bury St Edmunds Vision 2031 is the concept statement prepared to provide the parameters and framework for the development of south-east Bury St Edmunds as defined in Policy BV7, in other words, the 70 hectares of greenfield land south of the site to be allocated for development in accordance with policy CS11 of the Core Strategy. It constitutes supplementary planning guidance. The Borough Council expects that the issues raised in this concept statement will be given full consideration in the masterplan to be developed for the area and prior to the determination of any planning applications for the area. The concept statement refers to a relief road to provide a strategic link with the new development and the need to relocate the lorry park, which falls within the boundaries of the area. The concept statement adds at paragraph 1.5:
"currently the household recycling site is not seen as contributing negatively to the site and is not proposed to be removed in the early stages."
It notes that the integration of the household waste site will require careful consideration and a suitable new location will be required for the lorry park. The concept statement includes a plan of potential housing development. The plan shows a green corridor between the site and any potential housing development. The plan has a primary school, a community centre and some areas for employment.
Suffolk County Council has a waste core strategy, March 2011, including policies WDM2, WMD5, WMD7 and WMD8. Current government policy includes Planning Policy Statement 10 "Planning for Sustainable Waste Management" which was continued by the National Planning Practice Guidance published in March 2014. It states at paragraph 21 that "in deciding which sites and areas to identify for waste management facilities, waste planning authorities should assess their suitability for development" against criteria which includes "the physical and environmental constraints on development, including existing and proposed neighbouring land uses (see Annex E)." Annex E of PPS 10 lists locational criteria including visual intrusion, air emissions, including dust and odours. It also refers to the need to consider the "proximity of sensitive receptors" and goes on to state at (1): "Likely proposed development in the vicinity of the location under consideration should be taken into account in considering site suitability and the envisaged waste management facility".
The planning application
In 2010 and 2011 the County Council as waste authority carried out a site selection exercise based on waste collection routes to identify the optimum locations for waste transfer stations. The aim was to minimise vehicle mileage depending on where waste was generated around the county. Bury St Edmunds was identified as a priority location. A site search in the Bury St Edmunds area included the surrounding areas of Moreton Hall and Mildenhall Road. The only appropriate site identified in the Bury St Edmunds area was the "extended site of the existing HWRC on Rougham Hill". Other sites were ruled out due to incompatibility with adjacent land uses, insufficient plot size, land availability issues and environmental constraints.
The application for planning permission for the new waste facility was made by the part of the County Council which is the waste authority to the separate part which is the waste planning authority. The application dated 22 July 2013 relates to a combined waste transfer station for municipal waste ("WTS") and a split-level household waste recycling centre ("HWRC"). The application covers associated infrastructure including systems for surface water management, hard standings, internal roads and landscaping. Much of the hedgerow presently on the site is to be removed to accommodate the enlarged facility. New perimeter fencing and security lighting will be installed.
The WTS will be at the front of the site and will receive waste from kerbside rubbish collections, from the HWRC and from two other HWRCs. The waste will then be transferred into larger lorries to take it as appropriate to a recycling facility, a composting facility or an energy-from-waste facility. It will process some 95,000 tonnes...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Watermead Parish Council v Aylesbury Vale District Council Crematoria Management Ltd (Interested Party)
...v North Norfolk District Council [2015] 1 W.L.R. 3710, at paragraph 63, and the judgment of Cranston J. in R. (on the application of Corrie) v Suffolk County Council [2015] Env. L.R. 5, at paragraph 70). Crematoria Management had been caused considerable prejudice by this delay – as is ex......