Roudham and Larling Parish Council, R (on the application of) v Breckland Council

A planning-permission notice gives adequate reasons where it identifies the development-plan policy relied upon and sufficiently indicates why the proposal satisfies it, including by conditions addressing substantial objections. Regulation 22 does not require a catalogue of every policy that might have been relevant.

A development plan must be read as a coherent whole. A Schedule 2 environmental-impact requirement depends on the proposal actually falling within a listed description; a change to another use is not, without more, a change or extension of the former listed development. At the permission stage, an acknowledgement of service should contain summary grounds, and additional preparation costs require justification.

The Parish Council sought permission to judicially review Breckland Council’s conditional grant of planning permission for a hemp-processing plant in an agricultural building at Camp Farm. It contended that the Council had given inadequate reasons, failed to consider policy ECO5 of the Breckland District Local Plan, wrongly failed to obtain an environmental-impact screening opinion, conducted inadequate consultation, and improperly influenced its planning committee.

A Deputy Judge had refused permission on paper. Burton J later refused the renewed application in the Administrative Court: [2007] EWHC 2352 (Admin). He also ordered an interim payment of costs relating to the interested party’s acknowledgement of service. The Parish Council renewed its permission application and appealed the costs order.

The Court unanimously refused permission to apply for judicial review. It allowed the costs appeal to the limited extent of replacing the proposed recovery of the interested party’s acknowledgement costs with an assessment of £5,000.

1. The notice complied with regulation 22(1)(b) of the Town and Country Planning (General Development) Procedure Order 1995. Its reference to policy ENV22 made clear that the Council considered the proposal to be farm diversification satisfying that policy. The conditions implicitly explained that noise and traffic objections had been addressed. The regulation required identification of the policies actually relied upon, not an account of all policies that might theoretically have been relevant.

2. The Local Plan had to be read as a whole. Although ECO5 and ENV22 were not mirror images, the committee’s conclusion that this proposal was acceptable farm diversification under ENV22 resolved, on these facts, the relevant ECO5 objection. The different outcome on the commercial-storage proposal did not show that this decision was unlawful.

3. Under Schedule 2 to the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 1999, the plant was not a fibre pre-treatment plant or an industrial-estate infrastructure project. Paragraph 13 applied to a change or extension which maintained a listed existing use but altered its environmental effect; it did not apply to a change from that use to a different use. The former livestock use was also not intensive. No screening opinion was therefore required.

4. In any event, it would have been futile to require the Council to undertake an environmental-impact exercise when the Secretary of State had considered the matter and the Parish Council’s section 288 challenge remained available. The consultation complaint disclosed no actual prejudice or material further representation which additional time would have produced. The alleged committee coercion was unsupported by admissible evidence.

5. CPR 54.8(a)(i), as applied in Ewing v Office of the Deputy Prime Minister [2005] All ER (D) 315 and Davey v Aylesbury Vale DC [2007] EWCA Civ 1166, ordinarily requires only a summary acknowledgement. Additional preparation costs must be justified and excessive argumentative material is incurred at the respondent’s own expense. Although the proper course would normally be for the permission judge to determine reasonable costs, the Court made its own pragmatic assessment. The acknowledgement was excessive, but the substantial grounds and evidential issues justified some work. It awarded £5,000, without creating a benchmark.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): In [2008] EWCA Civ 714, the Court refused the renewed application for permission to apply for judicial review. It also varied the approach to acknowledgement-of-service costs and assessed those costs at £5,000.
• Administrative Court: Burton J refused permission after a detailed hearing in [2007] EWHC 2352 (Admin). He awarded £2,500 for the hearing and ordered an interim payment of £12,500 towards the interested party’s acknowledgement-of-service costs.
• Administrative Court (on paper): George Bartlett QC, sitting as a Deputy Judge, had earlier refused permission on paper.