Ashwell Property Group Plc & Anor v Cambridge City Council

Policy 24 of RPG 6 required a single review of the Cambridge Green Belt, ordinarily undertaken at structure-plan stage. A detailed review could satisfy that requirement, although detailed boundary drawing remained for the local plan. A later opportunity to consider smaller, non-strategic sites was permissive and did not require a further RPG 6 review. Green Belt release was a composite planning judgment. It required consideration of Green Belt purposes, development suitability, need and other material planning criteria. The overall requirement remained the exceptional-circumstances test in PPG 2. A site could not be released merely because it caused no significant detriment to Green Belt purposes without considering its proposed or potential development.

Ashwell challenged the City Council’s adoption of the Cambridge Local Plan under section 287 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The Plan retained the Barton Road North site in the Cambridge Green Belt. Forbes J dismissed the challenge, holding that the RPG 6 Green Belt Review had been completed through the structure-plan process and that any further alteration required exceptional circumstances under PPG 2.

On appeal, Ashwell argued that Policy 24 of RPG 6 required a further review at local-plan stage, that the Inspector had applied the wrong threshold, and that Green Belt release had to be considered separately from suitability for development. The central issue was the proper relationship between Policy 24, PPG 2, the structure plan and the local plan.

1. Appeal dismissed. The Inspector and the City Council had not erred in law in retaining the Barton Road North site in the Green Belt.
2. Policy 24 of RPG 6 required only a single Green Belt review. The RPG 6 Review undertaken by the relevant authorities complied with that requirement. Given the unusual specificity of the resulting Structure Plan, it met Policy 24’s requirements except for drawing the detailed boundaries of areas identified for release, which remained for the Local Plan.
3. Paragraph 9.34 of the Structure Plan permitted, but did not require, consideration at Local Plan stage of smaller, non-strategic sites not already identified for release. Any such consideration remained subject to Policy 24 and the PPG 2 requirement of exceptional circumstances.
4. The inquiry into whether Green Belt land could be released without significant detriment to Green Belt purposes formed part of a composite planning judgment. It also required consideration of the nature, scale and effects of proposed or potential development, its suitability and need, and other material planning criteria. It was not a free-standing preliminary entitlement to release a site.
5. Green Belt boundaries should be altered only where, assessed against proposed or potential development and overall planning considerations, exceptional circumstances justified alteration. Accessibility, public transport, flooding, effects on views of the City Centre and housing need were material considerations. The Inspector was therefore entitled to rely on the site’s unresolved accessibility and flooding problems, its detrimental effect on views, and the absence of housing need.
6. The complaint that Forbes J had failed to give adequate reasons was rejected. His interpretation of Policy 24 and paragraph 9.34 was intelligible and consistent with the Structure Plan EIP Panel’s observations.

A failure to understand applicable planning guidance, or to have proper regard to it so as possibly to affect the outcome, may justify quashing the resulting planning decision: see Gransden & Co Ltd v Environment Secretary.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Appeal from Forbes J’s decision, [2007] EWHC 1753 (Admin), dismissing the challenge to the City Council’s Local Plan decision. Appeal dismissed.
• High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division: Forbes J upheld the City Council’s decision to retain the Barton Road North site in the Cambridge Green Belt.