McCarthy & Stone Developments Ltd, R (on the application of) v Wirral Borough Council Legal Department

A planning decision-maker must engage with the actual terms of the applicable development plan policy, not merely the topic to which the policy relates. The policy framework determines the weight given to planning considerations and the standard of evidence required. Where policy requires development outside a growth area to meet local needs, it does not necessarily require an overriding need, exceptional circumstances or proof through a particular planning process. Reasons must address the principal issues in dispute, but need not separately analyse every item of evidence supporting the same case.

McCarthy and Stone Developments Ltd challenged under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 an inspector’s dismissal of its appeal against refusal of planning permission for sheltered housing in Hoylake.

The claimant relied on an identified local need for elderly persons’ accommodation. It argued that the inspector had misconstrued the applicable policies in RPG13, failed to give adequate reasons for rejecting the evidence of need, and wrongly treated the development plan process as the exclusive route for establishing housing need.

1. Application allowed; inspector’s decision quashed. The inspector had failed to engage with RPG13 policy SD3 and paragraph 3.18, despite their relevance, their inclusion in the reasons for refusal and their prominence in the parties’ submissions.
2. The inspector’s references to “stringent requirements”, an “overriding need” and “very restrictive policies” showed that he had imposed a test which the development plan did not contain. Properly construed, the policies channelled development towards the North West Metropolitan Area and identified towns, but treated the meeting of genuine local needs as an important planning aim. They imposed no special standard of proof and did not require an overriding need or exceptional circumstances before local housing needs could be met.
3. The policy framework mattered because it governed the weighting of planning factors and the quality of evidence required. Ignoring the key policy, or misconstruing it, was an error of law. The inspector’s requirement that housing needs be established through the development plan process was unsupported by law or policy. The choice of process was a matter for the local planning authority and developer to address on its merits.
4. The reasons challenge failed. The inspector had considered the relevant evidence and explained why the claimant’s principal housing-needs study was inadequate. A decision-maker must give reasons addressing the principal issues in contention, but need not separately explain the treatment of every supporting document.
5. The process error did not separately affect the outcome; it principally reflected the underlying policy error. The First Secretary of State was ordered to pay the claimant’s agreed costs of £15,000 inclusive of VAT.

The claim was a statutory challenge to an inspector’s decision dated 1 February 2005 dismissing the claimant’s planning appeal. The Administrative Court allowed the claim and quashed that decision.