Siraj, R (on the application of) v Kirklees metropolitan Council & Anor

In deciding whether inappropriate Green Belt development is justified, a planning authority must apply the PPG 2 requirement that other considerations clearly outweigh the harm from inappropriateness and any other harm. An officer’s report must be read as a whole, sensibly and for its informed planning audience. A defect warrants intervention only if the report significantly misleads the committee on a material matter.

Summary reasons for granting permission are not required to give the full, stand-alone explanation expected in a decision letter. Where members accept an officer’s recommendation without departing from its reasoning, concise reasons may adequately record their planning judgment. The weight given to factors capable in law of amounting collectively to very special circumstances is ordinarily for the planning authority.

A local resident challenged the council’s grant of planning permission for an agricultural machinery workshop in the Green Belt. The council’s planning subcommittee accepted its officers’ recommendation that the specialist business, its customers’ operational needs, difficulties at its existing premises, and the absence of suitable alternatives amounted collectively to very special circumstances.

His Honour Judge Langan QC dismissed the judicial-review claim in the Queen’s Bench Division: [2010] EWHC 444 (Admin). The claimant appealed, contending that the council had misapplied PPG 2, given inadequate reasons, and reached a Wednesbury-perverse decision. The central issue was whether the officer’s report and the decision notice disclosed a lawful application of the Green Belt policy.

1. Appeal dismissed. Sullivan LJ, with whom Elias and Tomlinson LJJ agreed, held that the council had applied the correct PPG 2 test. The officer’s report accurately stated that very special circumstances would not exist unless other considerations clearly outweighed the harm caused by inappropriate development and any other harm. Read as a whole, it did not suggest that the committee had lost sight of that test.
2. Planning officers’ reports are not to be construed as enactments. They should be read fairly, as documents addressed to an informed committee. The report would justify judicial-review intervention only if its overall effect significantly misled the committee on material matters and the error remained uncorrected. No such error arose here.
3. The contrast in Article 22(1) of the Town and Country Planning (General Development Procedure) Order 1995 between reasons for grants and refusals was material. A decision notice granting permission required a summary of reasons, unlike a refusal notice which had to state all reasons clearly and precisely. The standard for the Secretary of State’s decision letter considered in South Bucks District Council v Porter (No 2) [2004] UKHL 33 did not apply. Since members had accepted the officer’s recommendation and reasoning, the concise notice adequately stated that the four factors comprised very special circumstances justifying the development. It was not required to give reasons for those reasons.
4. The four factors were capable in law of amounting collectively to very special circumstances. Their weight, including the adequacy of the alternative-sites search and the need for relocation, was a matter of planning judgment for the committee. A different authority might have assessed them differently, but that did not render this decision perverse.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division) — dismissed the claimant’s appeal in [2010] EWCA Civ 1286.
• Queen’s Bench Division, Manchester District Registry — His Honour Judge Langan QC dismissed the claim for judicial review: [2010] EWHC 444 (Admin).