Stagg, R (on the application of) v First Secretary of State & Anor

In a challenge under Town and Country Planning Act 1990, section 288, the court upheld an inspector’s planning judgment concerning inappropriate development in the Green Belt. A proposal may satisfy the special-justification policy for isolated rural houses only where it meets the stringent standard stated in PPS7. An unusual proposal is not necessarily truly outstanding, innovative or exceptional. The inspector must consider the substance of the claimant’s case, but need not refer expressly to every submission or evidential matter. Where the merits of rebuilding a historic building are outweighed by the absence of an architectural or historic connection with the proposed site and the harm to Green Belt policy, the decision may lawfully refuse permission. Disagreement with the weight given to competing planning considerations does not establish an error of law.

The claimant applied under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to quash an inspector’s decision dismissing an appeal against refusal of planning permission. The proposal involved reconstructing a former Grade II listed villa from stored remains on open countryside within the North Cheshire Green Belt.

The inspector concluded that the development was inappropriate, would harm Green Belt openness and would not satisfy the requirement for very special circumstances. The claimant challenged the decision on the interpretation of PPS7, the assessment of the rebuilding proposal and the failure to address the possible export of the stored remains. The central issue was whether the decision contained an error of law.

1. The application was dismissed. The inspector’s decision was not unlawful. The claimant was ordered to pay the first defendant’s costs, summarily assessed at £5,262.

2. The claimant’s case before the inspector focused on PPS7 paragraph 11. The alleged special justification was the exceptional opportunity to rebuild and restore a former listed building. The inspector considered that substance and was entitled to conclude that the proposal was not truly innovative or exceptional. Since the same circumstances were relied upon as the very special circumstances required by Green Belt policy, there was no need for a separate express reference to PPS7 paragraph 10.

3. The reference to the isolated-new-house criterion in paragraph 24 of the decision-letter added nothing material to the reasoning. Any error in that passage therefore did not affect the result, because the inspector had already concluded that the proposal failed to satisfy the relevant PPS7 and Green Belt requirements.

4. PPS7 paragraph 11 imposed a deliberately stringent standard. The issue whether a proposal was truly outstanding, ground-breaking or exceptional was principally a matter of planning judgment. The inspector was entitled to distinguish earlier examples of listed buildings being relocated, particularly because those buildings had been rebuilt close to their original locations.

5. The inspector accepted that rebuilding Sandown Hall would restore a building of architectural and historical importance. He was nevertheless entitled to give greater weight to the absence of any direct architectural or historic affinity between the building and the proposed location, and to conclude that the benefit did not amount to very special circumstances sufficient to justify Green Belt development.

6. The inspector was not required to address expressly the possibility that the stored remains might be exported if permission were refused. That was not a principal disputed issue, and it would not have altered the central planning judgment that rebuilding the building on this unrelated Green Belt site did not outweigh Green Belt policy.