Friends of Basildon Golf Course v Basildon District Council & Anor

A screening opinion under the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) (England and Wales) Regulations 1999 must address the proposed development as a whole, including known further phases. The decision-maker needs sufficient information to make a rational planning judgment, but need not resolve every uncertainty or prepare an environmental statement at the screening stage. An erroneous consideration may be immaterial where an independent and valid reason supports the conclusion.

A negative screening opinion does not generally impose a duty on the authority to reconsider the issue when determining the planning application, particularly where no request for reconsideration has been made. A local planning authority may rationally conclude that an application is principally for golf-course improvement rather than waste operations. In that event, consultation with the county planning authority and consideration of waste policies are not legally required absent a statutory duty.

The claimant sought judicial review of conditional planning permission granted by Basildon District Council for a golf clubhouse, driving range, maintenance building, ancillary facilities and associated engineering works. The works involved importing inert material and remodelling the golf course, with further development contemplated beyond the submitted application.

The challenge alleged that the Council had unlawfully screened the development without considering the whole scheme, failed to reconsider its negative screening opinion after receiving Natural England’s response, failed to determine whether the application was a county matter, failed to consult Essex County Council, and failed to consider waste policies in the statutory development plan.

1. Ground 1 dismissed. The screening opinion clearly considered both the submitted application and the further remodelling contemplated at the golf course. The reference to all phases of the development was unambiguous. The opinion therefore addressed the correct development for environmental impact assessment purposes.
2. The decision-maker required sufficient information to reach a proper planning judgment, but was not required to resolve every uncertainty or undertake an assessment equivalent to an environmental statement. The information available, including plans, application documents, ecological material, site information and discussions with the developer, was sufficient. The conclusion was not irrational in the Wednesbury sense.
3. The incorrect estimate of imported material was capable of being material, but did not invalidate the screening conclusion. The decision-maker had also concluded, validly, that the material was inert and was being used to create landscaped mounds rather than as a waste operation. That independent basis was sufficient.
4. Following R(Fernback) v Harrow LBC [2002] EnvLR 10, a negative screening opinion is not necessarily determinative, but the authority is under no general duty to reconsider it when deciding the planning application. A reconsideration may be possible in an appropriate case, especially following a request or material change, but no such circumstances existed here. Nothing in R v Bromley LBC ex parte Barker [2006] 3 WLR 1209 or R v South Cambridgeshire DC ex parte Kides [2002] EWCA Civ 1370 altered that conclusion.
5. Ground 2 dismissed. The Council had addressed its mind to whether Essex County Council was the appropriate planning authority. Applying the Town and Country Planning (Prescription of County Matters) (England) Regulations 2003, the relevant question was whether the application was wholly or mainly for waste operations, or was ancillary to them. It was rationally characterised as an application for improvement of a golf course.
6. There was no statutory duty to consult the county planning authority in those circumstances. The Council was also entitled to treat waste policies in the statutory development plan as irrelevant once it had rationally concluded that the application was not a waste application.
7. The claim for judicial review failed. The planning permission was not quashed.