Co-Operative Group, R (on the application of) v Rushcliffe Borough

Whether a site lies within a town centre for retail-planning purposes is ordinarily a matter of planning judgment, informed by local circumstances. A development-plan policy identifying a principal shopping area does not necessarily define the whole town centre. Inclusion within such an area may support the conclusion that a site is within the town centre, but exclusion does not establish the contrary. Under PPG6, an out-of-centre retail proposal requires assessment of need and compliance with the sequential approach. Those requirements do not arise merely because a site lies outside a defined shopping-policy area, if the planning authority reasonably concludes that it remains within the town centre.

The claimant sought judicial review of the defendant council’s grant of outline planning permission for a food store and service yard at The Manor Public House, West Bridgford. The claimant operated a competing food store nearby.

The council accepted an officer’s report stating that the site was within West Bridgford town centre. It therefore concluded that, under PPG6, no demonstration of retail need or sequential site assessment was required. The principal issue was whether Policy S2 of the Rushcliffe Borough Local Plan defined the town centre so that the site, being outside the policy’s shopping area, had to be treated as out of centre. A subsidiary issue concerned the officer’s reference to the absence of objections to an emerging local-plan alteration.

1. Application dismissed. The council’s decision to grant planning permission was lawful. The claimant was ordered to pay the defendant’s costs, summarily assessed at £10,033, and the second interested party’s costs of filing and serving its acknowledgment of service and summary grounds, summarily assessed at £2,646.69.
2. Under PPG6, an applicant proposing retail development outside a town centre must demonstrate need and follow the sequential approach, giving preference to town-centre sites, then edge-of-centre sites, and only then out-of-centre sites. The issue whether a particular site lies within a town centre is, however, predominantly a matter of planning judgment and local knowledge.
3. Policy S2 did not define the town centre of West Bridgford for PPG6 purposes. On its proper reading, it identified the principal shopping area and other shopping parades where retail and retail-service uses would be encouraged, while restricting other retail development. It also protected principal shopping frontages from an excessive proportion of A2 and A3 uses.
4. The fact that the site was outside the shopping-policy area did not mean that it was outside the town centre. A town centre will commonly extend beyond the prime shopping area and may include other uses, such as public houses, restaurants, entertainment, employment, civic and transport uses, depending on local circumstances.
5. The officer was entitled to conclude, as a matter of planning judgment, that the site was within the town centre. The absence of objections to its inclusion in the emerging replacement local plan added weight to that view. That advice was not an abstract application of the guidance concerning weight to be given to emerging plans in paragraph 48 of PPG1, but a specific observation supporting the officer’s planning conclusion.