The King on the application of Wild Justice v Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority

Hearing dates: 18 th & 19 th June 2025

Approved Judgment

This judgment was handed down remotely at 10.00am on 5 th September 2025 by circulation to the parties or their representatives by e-mail and by release to the National Archives.

By the decision of its Development Management Committee (“the Committee”) on 16 ^th October 2024 (“the Decision”) the Defendant granted the Interested Party planning permission for the change of the use of The Old Bus Depot, Moylegrove, Pembrokeshire (“the Site”) to use as an outdoor adventure centre with associated storage facilities. The Claimant applies for judicial review of the Decision on five grounds. Permission was given on paper for two of those grounds by HH Judge Jarman KC and I gave permission for the remaining grounds by an order of 18 ^th March 2025.

The grounds allege a number of failings in the procedure leading to the Decision and also challenge the rationality and lawfulness of the Decision. The Defendant denies that there were any procedural failings and contends that the Decision was rational and lawful. As a fallback position it invokes section 31(2A) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 saying that relief should be refused because to the extent that any public law failing is established it remains highly likely that the outcome would have been the same even if the failing had not occurred.

The Interested Party took no part in the proceedings other than by way of a representative who attended the hearing as an observer.

The Factual Background .

The Site has been disused for a number of years. The Interested Party currently operates its coasteering and kayaking business from premises approximately ¹/₂ mile to the north of the Site. The Interested Party is concerned that the lease of its current premises might not be renewed and is looking to the Site to provide replacement premises.

Coasteering is an omnibus term covering a range of activities which can take place on the coastline. Such activities include wild swimming; the exploration of coastal caves; low-level traversing (using partially submerged rocks to cross a small section of deep water); and jumping from cliffs into deep water. It is said to be suitable for those who regard themselves as intrepid adventurers who like to “get up close and personal with nature” and to “explore areas of coastline that most people would find it difficult to reach”. The Interested Party's business involves the organisation of such activities together with kayaking and similar water-based sporting activity. One of the places in which the Interested Party organizes coasteering and kayaking is Ceibwr Bay, which is 1.6 miles by road and approximately 1 mile on foot from the Site.

In support of its application for planning permission the Interested Party contended that the effect of granting permission would be to enable an existing activity to continue. The business which it operated from the former premises would continue at the Site and the activity in Ceibwr Bay would not be new but would be a continuation of the coasteering which was already taking place (it appears that the Pembrokeshire Coast was one of the first places in the United Kingdom where coasteering took place). In reaching the Decision the Defendant took account of the fact that the Interested Party's operation was an existing local business. However, it also had regard to the fact that the move to the Site had the potential to lead to an increase in the volume of coasteering activity. This was because of the improvement in the facilities which would be available to the Interested Party and to its customers. The premises from which the Interested Party was operating were a working farm and the Interested Party's training and educational activities were taking place in disused former farm buildings. The Interested Party's equipment was also stored in such buildings and the premises had limited parking and changing facilities. The proposed use of the Site would provide the Interested Party and its customers with improved storage and changing facilities together with increased car parking space and improved facilities for its educational work. As was explained on behalf of the Interested Party at the meeting of the Committee, the biggest constraint on the growth of the Interested Party's business was the weather. The proposed development would increase the prospect of engagement in the Interested Party's activities outside the peak season by providing facilities for changing in wet weather.

Although the Site itself is not in any environmentally protected area, Ceibwr Bay is in a number of such areas. Those are the Cardigan Bay Special Area of Conservation, the West Wales Marine Special Area of Conservation, and the Aberath-Carreg Wylan Site of Special Scientific Interest (“ACW SSSI”). In addition, members of species associated with the Skomer, Skokholm and Seas off Pembrokeshire Special Protection Area may be present in Ceibwr Bay at times. It follows that the activities organised from the Site will take place in an environmentally protected area. It also follows that any increase in the number of those taking part in the Interested Party's coasteering activities will increase the volume of activity in that protected area.

Sections of the coastline of Ceibwr Bay are owned by the National Trust. That body only permits the Interested Party to use its land at Ceibwr Bay at certain times of the year and on certain conditions. Those restrictions are set out in the National Trust's Pembrokeshire Coasteering Concordat (“the Concordat”). Although a copy of the Concordat was provided to the Defendant's Planning Ecologist, Rebecca Blackman, and although she referred to it in her assessment, it is not a published document and its terms were not and have not been disclosed.

The Pembrokeshire Coastal Forum's Marine Code (“the Marine Code”) is made up of a number of voluntary codes of conduct. These explain the ways in which those engaging in activity around the coast should behave in order to avoid disturbing the local fauna. The codes include codes of the behaviour needed to avoid disturbing seals and seabirds.

The Grounds of Challenge and the Parties' Cases in Summary .

The claim is in very large part based on criticism of the approach taken in the report to the Committee (“the Officers' Report”) and in the Habitats Regulation Assessment (“the Appropriate Assessment”) of 2 ^nd September 2024. The Appropriate Assessment was undertaken by Miss Blackman, in purported performance of the Defendant's obligations under regulation 63 of the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 (“the Habitats Regulations”). It will be seen that a number of the grounds turn on questions of the proper reading of those documents and of Miss Blackman's further note of 15 ^th October 2024. It will be necessary to analyse those documents and the proceedings at the meeting of the Committee in some detail. In doing so, however, it is important not to lose sight of the way in which such reports are to be considered by the court. The principles were summarized by Lindblom LJ in R (Mansell) v Tonbridge & Malling BC [2017] EWCA Civ 1314, [2019] [PTSR] 1452 at [42], to which summary is to be added the warning of Sir Geoffrey Vos at [62]. Reports are “not to be read with undue rigour but with reasonable benevolence” and with a view to a “fair reading of the report as a whole” and the court should not engage in a “legalistic analysis of the different formulations adopted in a planning officer's report”. Each of the challenges which turn on the terms of the Officers' Report and of the Appropriate Assessment will have to be approached against the background of those principles.

In ground 1 the Claimant contends that a number of documents which should have been published were not. Those were documents which the Claimant says were relied upon in formulating the Officers' Report and the Appropriate Assessment. Accordingly, they should have been published pursuant either to the requirement that the Defendant act fairly towards those who were objecting to the application or to the Defendant's obligations under section 100D of the Local Government Act 1972. The documents in question were the Concordat, the draft of the September 2024 National Resources Wales Ceibwr Breeding Bird Survey 2024 (“the NRW Draft Report”), and various documents submitted by the Interested Party in support of the application (“the Lobby Documents”). The NRW Draft Report derived from a survey which had also formed the basis for a position statement (“the NRW Position Statement”) which had been published on 30 ^th August 2024. In the course of the hearing it became apparent that only two of the Lobby Documents were relevant. The first was an email of 10 ^th July 2024 from the Interested Party's architect to the Defendant's Development Management Manager, Kate Attrill, taking the form of a series of questions and answers (“the Q & A Document”). The second was a letter from the Interested Party's agent which was sent on 15 ^th October 2024 and uploaded to the Defendant's website the same day. The Defendant says that there was no breach either of the requirements of fairness or of its obligations under section 100D. It does not accept that either the Concordat or the NRW Draft Report were...