Reynolds v Newport County Borough Council

Judicial review is concerned with legality, not the merits of a planning decision. A decision does not become unlawful merely because it is controversial, could have been different, or involves a disputed assessment of amenity, parking or safety. Failure to consult a statutory or amenity consultee does not automatically invalidate permission where the court is satisfied that consultation would not have affected the result. A renewed application should not ordinarily introduce grounds or evidence that could reasonably have been advanced earlier. Fresh evidence may also be refused where it is procedurally unjustified or would not be dispositive.

Dr Mary Reynolds sought judicial review of delegated decisions by Newport County Borough Council granting planning permission and listed building consent for the conversion of Priory House, next to her home, into a guest house. Collins J rejected the application after an inter partes hearing. An application for permission to appeal was then rejected on paper, followed by this renewed application before the Court of Appeal.

The renewed application challenged consultation, overlooking, parking and safety assessments, the absence of a restoration condition, and the failure to consult the Council for British Archaeology. The central issues were whether the council had committed an error of law and whether fresh evidence should be admitted.

1. Application refused. Lord Justice Buxton held that the court’s function on judicial review was to determine whether the local planning authority had erred in law. It was not entitled to reconsider the substance or merits of the planning decision. The fact that the decision was controversial, reached by a narrow majority, or could reasonably have been different did not establish unlawfulness.
2. The complaints concerning overlooking, amenity, parking and safety involved matters of factual assessment and planning judgment. The committee was entitled to assess the significance of the alleged overlooking, to rely on existing bollards and double yellow lines, and to conclude that adequate public parking was available. Even if there had been a factual mistake about parking, it did not amount to a sufficient error of law requiring the decision to be revisited.
3. The failure to consult amenity societies under section 15(5) of the Listed Buildings Act did not make the permission unlawful automatically. The court accepted that the provision was engaged where relevant works, including demolition, were proposed, but upheld the conclusion that the likely views of the consultees would not have altered the decision. Consultation was therefore not treated as an invariably decisive procedural requirement.
4. The complaint that no condition required restoration works to be completed before the guest house opened concerned the council’s planning judgment. The council might have adopted a different approach, but its decision disclosed no error of law.
5. Fresh evidence from the Council for British Archaeology was refused. The evidence could have been obtained and presented before Collins J, and the explanation for its absence was materially incomplete. In any event, it would not have been decisive. The Council for British Archaeology was not regarded as the relevant consultee for concerns about an eighteenth-century building, particularly when the Georgian Group had raised no objection.

• Queen’s Bench Division: Collins J rejected Dr Reynolds’s application for judicial review after an inter partes hearing.
• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): The paper application for permission was rejected. The renewed application was heard by Lord Justice Buxton and was refused.