Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority, R (on the application of) v National Assembly for Wales & Anor

When an emerging development-plan policy is relied upon, the decision-maker must weigh it as a material consideration against the adopted development plan and all other relevant considerations. Prematurity is not a dominant or automatic ground for refusal. The decision requires a fact-sensitive assessment of the proposal’s scale, impact, cumulative effect, the stage of plan preparation, the evidence supporting the policy and whether the proposal would predetermine matters reserved for the plan process. A planning authority must address those considerations in each individual case and provide evidence for assertions of need or prejudice. Failure to do so may justify an award of appeal costs.

The claimant authority challenged, under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, an inspector’s decision allowing an appeal against refusal of planning permission. The proposal involved converting part of a former guest house in Tenby into two unrestricted residential flats.

The refusal relied principally on the alleged prematurity of the application in light of an emerging policy restricting new residential development in the National Park to local or essential housing needs. The authority also challenged the inspector’s award of appeal costs to the applicant. The central issues were the weight to be given to the emerging policy, whether the proposal would prejudice the development-plan process, and whether the authority had acted unreasonably.

1. The planning challenge was dismissed. The inspector’s decision to allow the planning appeal was not irrational, unreasonable or unlawful.
2. Under section 54A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, the decision-maker must identify and interpret the relevant provisions of the adopted development plan, assess whether the proposal accords with it, identify all other material considerations and weigh them. An emerging policy may be a material consideration relied upon by either the authority or the applicant. Its weight depends on matters including the stage of plan preparation, conflict with adopted plans and the nature and extent of objections.
3. The guidance in Planning Policy (Wales), chapter 3, paragraphs 5.1–5.5, applies whenever reliance is placed on an emerging policy. Prematurity may justify refusal where a proposal is individually substantial, or its cumulative effect significant, so that permission would predetermine decisions about the scale, location or phasing of development which ought properly to be made through the plan process. The proposal must ordinarily go to the heart of the plan.
4. The inspector was entitled to consider the controversial nature of the policy, the likely delay before adoption, possible conflict with national policy, the proposal’s scale and cumulative impact, its effect on the site and settlement, and the quality of the evidence said to demonstrate prejudice. Prematurity was not a trump card which displaced all other considerations. The authority’s failure to analyse those matters in relation to this application was legally significant.
5. The inspector was also entitled to find that the authority had not demonstrated the need which the emerging policy sought to address. The proposal was a limited internal reconversion in Tenby, and its effect on the emerging policy’s objectives and on future applications was not self-evident. The absence of reliable evidence justified attaching little weight to the emerging policy in the appeal.
6. The costs challenge was also dismissed. The inspector was entitled to conclude that the authority had acted unreasonably by seeking to halt development without addressing proportionality, evidence of need and the other material considerations which its own policy required to be considered in each case. The claimant was ordered to pay the defendant’s agreed costs of £8,149.50.

This was a first-instance statutory planning challenge and linked judicial review claim in the Administrative Court. The court dismissed both claims and ordered the claimant to pay the defendant’s agreed costs.