Adams (t/a Strategic Land Partnerships) v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government & Anor

In reviewing a planning inspector’s balancing exercise, the court should read the decision letter sensibly and avoid over-rigorous or over-sophisticated analysis. An inspector’s interpretation of planning policy is lawful if it falls within a meaning the policy can reasonably bear.

Where national and local policies give substantial protection to an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, significant harm from a proposed development may outweigh housing need and associated benefits. The inspector need not find exceptional harm, compare the site with other potential sites, or undertake a comparative harm assessment. A challenge based only on disagreement with the weight given to competing considerations discloses no error of law.

The claimant applied under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to quash a planning inspector’s decision dismissing an appeal against Cheltenham Borough Council’s refusal of permission for 34 houses, including affordable housing, on land within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The inspector accepted that Cheltenham lacked a robust five-year housing land supply and that the proposal would provide housing and community benefits. He nevertheless found significant harm to the AONB and concluded that the proposal did not reflect the relevant spatial vision. The claimant alleged errors concerning the role of Areas of Search, the AONB boundary, the assessment of harm, and the need for comparative analysis.

1. The application was dismissed. The inspector’s decision disclosed no error of law.
2. The court should approach a decision letter in a common-sense manner and should not subject it to over-rigorous or over-sophisticated analysis. An inspector’s view of the meaning or effect of a planning policy is lawful if the policy can reasonably bear that meaning. This approach was supported by R v Derbyshire CC ex p Woods [1998] Env LR 277.
3. The inspector was entitled to regard the emerging Regional Spatial Strategy as giving a clear preference to development in the identified Areas of Search. The proposal’s absence from an adopted development plan and from an Area of Search was therefore a relevant consideration. The inspector was also entitled to treat the protected-landscape policy, including ENV3, as a powerful countervailing factor.
4. The inspector’s finding of significant harm concerned the particular residential development proposed, not every possible form of development on the site. It was plainly open to him and was not for the court to second-guess.
5. Neither policy nor law required a finding of exceptional harm before the appeal could be refused. Even lesser harm could properly be weighed against housing need because the applicable policies gave high priority to protecting AONBs.
6. The inspector was not required to compare the harm to this AONB with the possible harm arising from development in another AONB or Area of Search. The inclusion of an AONB within another Area of Search did not establish an acceptable level of harm applicable elsewhere.
7. The inspector had taken the housing shortfall and affordable-housing need into account. The application amounted to disagreement with the outcome of a potentially finely balanced planning judgment, which provided no basis for intervention.