Oadby Hilltop and Meadowcroft Conservation Area Association & Anor, R (on the application of) v Oadby and Wigston Borough Council & Anor

A planning decision will not be quashed for an alleged failure to consider material matters unless the authority was materially misdirected or there is a real possibility that the outcome would have been different. Planning committee reports and oral contributions should be read in context and with common sense, not subjected to the textual analysis appropriate to legislation. A previous lapsed permission may remain a material consideration, although it must be given no more weight than appropriate. Planning policy guidance is not applied as a statute; the committee must be informed of its essential impact and give it such weight as it considers appropriate. The efficacy of conditions is ordinarily a matter of planning judgment, unless a condition cannot address a fundamental objection to the development.

The claimants, a local conservation-area association and its treasurer, sought judicial review of the defendant council’s decision to grant the University of Leicester planning permission for the continued use and extension of Gilbert Murray Hall as a conference facility, with associated parking.

The challenge alleged failures to consider material matters, legal misdirection concerning the existing use and earlier permissions, inadequate reasons, irrational conditions, and improper advice about planning appeals. The central question was whether any alleged error of law had materially affected the committee’s decision.

1. Disposition. The application for judicial review was dismissed. None of the nine grounds was established, and the court was not persuaded that the criticisms cumulatively rendered the decision unlawful.
2. Material considerations and committee voting. The committee was entitled to consider matters wider than the parking issue identified in the earlier refusal. The transcript did not demonstrate that members who supported permission believed they had no alternative because of officers’ advice. A chair is one member of the committee, subject to any casting vote, and need not be impartial in the manner of a trial judge. The court should be cautious about inferring legal error from isolated words in an unstructured debate.
3. Existing use and earlier permission. The evidence concerning out-of-term conference use presented a grey area. The committee knew the relevant facts and could attach such weight to them as it considered appropriate. A lapsed planning permission is not binding, but may remain a material consideration and must not be given excessive weight.
4. Planning policy and reports. The committee had been informed of PPS6, recognised its essential impact, and had the opportunity to refuse permission by reference to it. Policy guidance was not a statutory code. Officers’ reports must be read as a whole and in context by an informed readership; they are not to be construed as enactments. The same caution applies to oral contributions recorded at committee meetings.
5. Conditions and reasons. The conditions limiting delegate numbers were not irrational merely because their enforcement might be difficult. Whether conditions adequately address planning concerns is generally a matter of planning judgment, subject to the threshold that a condition which cannot meet a fundamental objection may call the permission itself into question. The summary reasons were adequate in the circumstances, particularly because the modest increase in parking represented a material change from the earlier proposal.

First-instance judicial review proceedings. Permission was initially refused on the papers by Mitting J on 23 February 2010, but was granted after an opposed oral hearing by Beatson J on 2 July 2010. The claim was dismissed by the High Court (Administrative Court).