SPVRG Ltd v Pembrokeshire County Council

Hearing dates: 27 January 2025

Approved Judgment

This judgment was handed down remotely at 10.30am on [date] by circulation to the parties or their representatives by e-mail and by release to the National Archives.

HIS HONOUR JUDGE Jarman KC

HHJ Jarman KC:

Introduction

The claimant (a company formed by local residents) challenges the grant of planning permission dated 4 January 2024 by the defendant as local planning authority to the interested party for the installation of 48 bases for holiday lodges, spa facility, holiday apartments in the former Stepaside Inn, café and cycle hire, equestrian stables, manège and associated office, main park office, car and cycle parking, residential garages, landscaping, access, retaining walls, foul and surface water drainage, related infrastructure and engineering works at Heritage Park, Pleasant Valley, Narberth. Such development would create a northward extension of an existing caravan park at Heritage Park, which currently has 112 static caravan plots. The defendant is the freeholder of the existing park, which it leased to the interested party in 2007 on a long lease.

It is not in dispute that such development would conflict with important policies in the local development plan adopted in 2013. The most relevant policy relating to the extension of caravan sites, GN 19, permits such extensions only within settlement boundaries. The areas of the proposed development allocated for the holiday lodges are outside the settlement boundary of Stepaside and Pleasant Valley. The proposed holiday apartments are predominantly within that settlement boundary, but Stepaside is a local village and not a town, service centre or service village as required by policy GN 17, and on that basis the proposed development is also contrary to that policy.

Background

Such conflict was at the heart of the defendant's planning officers recommending refusal prior to meetings of the defendant's planning committee in September and October 2024 and of the full council in November 2024. The planning committee, after a site visit, resolved to grant planning permission, and because this did not follow officer recommendation, the application was referred to the full council. The defendant's head of planning produced a further report for the council. That recorded that the planning committee in October 2024 resolved to grant planning permission for the proposed development subject to the conditions outlined in the head of planning's report to the committee, which was against officer recommendation, and that the reason given by the committee was that it considered that greater weight should be afforded to the suggested economic benefits (set out in an economic assessment accompanying the application by the interested party) of the proposal rather than development plan policy.

The head of planning's report to the full council contained the following recommendation:

“That the Council does not endorse the resolution of the Planning Committee and refuse the planning application for the following reason:—

By reason of the proposed bases for holiday lodges being outside of a settlement and the holiday apartments not being within or well-related to a town, service centre or service village; the proposed development fails to accord with policies SP 1, SP 5, SP 16, GN.1, GN.17 and GN.19 of the Local Development Plan for Pembrokeshire (adopted 28 February 2013).”

No written reasons were formulated before the application was put to the council to vote. The resolution to be voted on was expressed to be whether the council should endorse the resolution of the planning committee. The vote was in favour and the resolution recorded as such.

Permission to bring this challenge was granted by this court on two only of the seven grounds on which permission was sought. The first ground (ground 1) is that no or no adequate reasons were given by the council for its decision. The second (ground 3) is that the council dealt with the issue of the economic benefits of the proposed development in a way that was unreasonable and unlawful.

Generally, there is no duty on a local planning authority to give reasons for allowing an application for planning permission. Ms Parekh for the defendant properly accepts, however, that such a duty did arise in this case given that the council was going against officer recommendations and that there were conflicts with the development plan, see R (CPRE Kent) v Dover District Council [2017] UKSC 79; [2018] 1 WLR 108.

However, she submits that members of the council were entitled to use their collective planning judgment to come to a different conclusion to that of the planning officers and to endorse the decision of the planning committee that weighing in the balance the economic benefits of the proposed development on the one hand against the conflicts with the development plan on the other, the former outweigh the latter.

Mr Jones, for the claimant, realistically accepts that such would be the position if the decision were a straightforward balancing exercise but submits on the facts of this case that the challenge is far more nuanced than that. He points to issues raised in the head of planning's report to the council, not previously raised in officer's reports, which he submits were not grappled with by the council and did not form part of its reasoning.

One such issue was the detrimental economic impacts of the proposed development including the creation of unsustainable development at an unsustainable location, overprovision of holiday accommodation leading to negative impacts on existing sites and negative impacts upon the cohesion of communities and local businesses. Another such issue was that the proposed locations for the lodge bases and holiday apartments are outside of any town centre or service village and are therefore not in sustainable locations, which will increase the use and reliance on private vehicles to access the development, which is contrary to local and national planning policy. Third, it was not possible to confirm whether the estimated economic benefits outlined by the interested parties would be realised. Fourth, similar proposals outside settlements or not well-related to a town, service centre or service village could generate comparable benefits, and giving significant weight to the limited benefits of the proposed development would set an undesirable precedent and would make it difficult for the defendant to resist similar proposals.

As part of the interested party's application for planning permission, an economic assessment by Lichfields was submitted. In its introduction, it was stated that the assessment of the impact of the proposed development focussed on levels of investment and construction related employment, direct employment generated by the development, indirect employment in the area supported by the development, and levels of expenditure attracted to the area. The methodology was said to provide a framework for assessing “economic benefits arising from new development.” The context plan in the assessment showed Heritage Park located near to the southeast boundary of the county. No other similar parks were shown and the impact on them of the proposed development was not assessed as part of the report.

In the summary of economic impacts of the proposed development, it was stated that it would involve an investment of around £6.35 million, and then at [8.11] some of the impacts were set out as follows:

“Some of the quantifiable economic impacts of the proposed development are likely to include:

1 Injecting £6.25 million of total private sector investment into the local economy in Pembrokeshire;

2 Creating 58 person-years of temporary construction work, which is equivalent to 19 jobs per year of construction over a build period of approximately 3 years at a range of skill levels;

3 Supporting an additional 29 jobs per annum in services and other businesses from the wage spending of construction workers and supplier sourcing;

4 Generating £2.46 million GVA of direct and indirect GVA per annum from the construction phase of the scheme;

5 Generate additional Business Rates and Income Tax and National Insurance from the new direct jobs created;

6 Creating 44 direct jobs (39 FTE) at Heritage Park, in turn generating £3.1 m of additional direct and indirect GVA each year; and,

7 Once the scheme is complete, net expenditure by new visitors and by Heritage Park will also contribute an additional £930,000 to the local economy (adjusted for inflation). This figure does not include the expenditure of the café, spa and equestrian centre.”

At [8.12] this was stated:

“The above economic benefits will help to support economic prosperity throughout Pembrokeshire as a result of investment and the provision of local jobs. This is particularly important, given the context of changes within the local tourism industry and the need to attract and retain a working age population within Pembrokeshire in order to maintain services and amenities for residents.”

The grant of permission

The head of planning's report of November 2024 for the full council meeting, set out the history of the application before the planning committee and then dealt with policy context, as follows:

“The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act...