Secondsite Property Holdings Ltd v Borough of Poole

Reasons given by a local planning authority for departing from a local plan inspector’s recommendation must be proper, adequate and intelligible, and must show that the authority grappled with the reasoning underlying the recommendation. Where the inspector has expressed a general and tentative planning judgment, the authority need not answer hypothetical detailed concerns which the inspector did not identify. The authority must address each material side of a balancing exercise. In a challenge under section 287 of the Town and Country Planning Act, any inadequacy must also have caused substantial prejudice. The adequacy of reasons is assessed in context, having regard to the volume and nature of the objections and recommendations being addressed.

The claimant owned a former British Gas site in Poole which the inspector recommended should be removed from an employment allocation and allocated for housing. The defendant local planning authority declined to accept that recommendation. It relied on the need to retain a range and choice of employment sites and expressed confidence that the housing requirement could be met through existing allocations.

The claimant challenged the housing and employment chapters of the Poole Local Plan First Alteration under section 287 of the Town and Country Planning Act. The central issue was whether the defendant’s reasons, given under the Town and Country Planning (Development Plan) (England) Regulations 1999, adequately grappled with the inspector’s reasoning.

1. The application to quash the housing and employment chapters was dismissed. The claimant was ordered to pay the defendant’s costs, summarily assessed at £12,330.
2. The applicable standard was that reasons had to be proper, adequate and intelligible and deal with substantial points raised: Westminster City Council v Great Portland Estates PLC [1985] 1 AC 661. The underlying rule was that the reasons must demonstrate that the authority had grappled with the reasoning underlying the inspector’s recommendation: Bainbridge v Hambleton District Council [2000] 80 P&CR 61 at page 70.
3. The inspector’s recommendation involved a balance between housing need and employment need. The defendant therefore had to provide adequate reasons on both sides of that balance. Its reasoning on employment was adequate. It explained why the apparent surplus against the Structure Plan requirement did not remove the need to retain a sufficient range and choice of employment sites.
4. The inspector’s concern about housing yield was expressed in general and tentative terms. He identified no particular site or detailed problem requiring a specific answer. The defendant was entitled to disagree with that planning judgment and explain, by reference to its experience of sites coming forward and anticipated housing capacity, why it considered additional flexibility unnecessary.
5. Documents produced under the Regulations were not to be construed as statutes. In context, the reference to sites where implementation was commencing was sufficiently intelligible, because pre-application discussions indicated that those sites were coming forward and were likely to yield more than their minimum allocations.
6. This was not a case in which the authority had ignored the inspector’s report, unlike Stirk v Bridgenorth District Council [1997] 73 P&CR 479. The defendant had identified and addressed the inspector’s concern. Any possible infelicity in its reasoning would not, in any event, have caused substantial prejudice.