Jenkins & Anor v Secretary of State for the Communities and Local Government & Anor

When reviewing a planning decision, the court must respect the decision-maker’s planning judgment. However, the decision letter must address the principal controversial issues and show that important evidence and considerations have not been misunderstood or overlooked. A failure to engage adequately with evidence central to the existence of very special circumstances may amount to an error of law. This is so even where the proposed development causes substantial harm to the Green Belt and the burden lies on the applicant to justify permission. Reasons need not address every argument, but they must be intelligible, adequate and sufficient to show how the decisive issues were resolved, applying the approach in South Buckinghamshire District Council v Porter (No 2) [2004] 1 WLR 1953.

The claimants owned and operated a nursing home in the Green Belt. An inspector dismissed six appeals against refusals of planning permission for extensions, additional care and sheltered dwellings, and a kitchen extension.

The claimants applied under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. They alleged that the inspector had failed to give adequate reasons and had failed to consider material evidence concerning unmet care needs and the financial viability of the nursing home. The central issue was whether those defects disclosed an error of law warranting quashing of the decisions.

1. Claim allowed. The inspector’s decisions were quashed and all six appeals were remitted for reconsideration together.
2. The court applied the approach stated in South Buckinghamshire District Council v Porter (No 2) [2004] 1 WLR 1953. Reasons must be intelligible and adequate, address the principal important controversial issues, and disclose how issues of law and fact were resolved. The inspector need not deal with every argument or material consideration, and the court must read the decision letter straightforwardly. The decision must nevertheless show that important evidence has not been misunderstood or misapplied.
3. The inspector was entitled to conclude that the Green Belt proposals caused substantial harm and to exercise a planning judgment about the extent and urgency of unmet care need. His treatment of need was less than perfect, because he did not sufficiently explain why the substantial shortfall and the alleged inability of ordinary planning policy to secure the required accommodation did not establish an acute need.
4. The principal error concerned viability. The inspector relied on an operating profit without adequately addressing the substantial capital repayments, the absence of remuneration for the claimants, the bank’s special-measures concerns and the evidence that refusal might lead to closure. Those matters were central to the alleged very special circumstances. The failure to show that they had been taken into account made the reasoning legally defective.
5. The omission concerning the kitchen extension, considered alone, would not have justified quashing because the outcome would inevitably have been the same. Since the other decisions were quashed and the applications were interconnected, however, the kitchen appeal was also remitted. Costs were subject to detailed assessment if not agreed.

An inspector dismissed the claimants’ appeals against refusals of planning permission. The Administrative Court quashed the inspector’s decisions under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and remitted the appeals for reconsideration.