Banbury Golf Centre v First Secretary of State

In a planning decision, the obligation to give reasons requires the decision-maker to address the principal controversial issues, but it does not require a specific response to every submission. Matters wholly irrelevant to the planning merits need not be addressed. A submission concerning the weight to be given to evidence may be material, but an express response is unnecessary where the decision-maker’s conclusions make the evidential assessment apparent. A failure to give further reasons will not justify quashing the decision where it could not have caused substantial prejudice or affected the outcome.

The claimant applied under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to quash the Secretary of State’s refusal of planning permission for a hotel, golf club house, driving range and community centre.

The application had been called in after Oxfordshire County Council disputed the local planning authority’s view that the proposal was not a departure from the development plan. Before the inquiry, the claimant submitted that the call-in request was an abuse of power, that the application should not have been called in, and that the County Council’s conduct affected the weight to be given to its evidence. Neither the Inspector nor the Secretary of State expressly addressed those submissions.

The central issue was whether that omission amounted to a failure to give adequate reasons causing material prejudice.

1. The application was dismissed. The claimant was ordered to pay the defendant’s agreed costs of £4,695.

2. The court held that the Secretary of State’s power to call in a planning application under section 77 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 was free-standing. The application could reach him through various routes, and the County Council’s reasons for requesting call-in became irrelevant once the Secretary of State exercised his own lawful discretion for proper planning reasons. The lawfulness of the call-in decision had not been challenged.

3. The submissions that the County Council had abused its power and that the application should not have been called in were therefore wholly immaterial to the planning determination. No weight could properly be attached to them.

4. A submission that the weight given to particular evidence should be increased or reduced may, in general terms, be a material consideration. However, the decision-maker need not respond specifically to every submission. The obligation is to give reasons dealing with the principal controversial issues. The Inspector had carefully determined the proper interpretation of policy T5 and whether the proposal complied with it. That analysis addressed the substance of the claimant’s criticism and made an express response to proposition (c) unnecessary.

5. In any event, the decision was comprehensively based on conflict with development plan policies and national guidance in PPG6, PPG7 and PPG13. Even if an express response had been required, its omission could not have caused substantial prejudice or altered the outcome. The planning merits provided only one possible result.

The judgment records that an Inspector held an inquiry and reported to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State then refused planning permission in a decision letter dated 26 February 2003. This was a first-instance application under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990; the application was dismissed.