Wainhomes (South West) Holdings Ltd v The Secretary of State for Communities And Local Government

In a planning appeal, an inspector must consider material information available before the decision, including a recent decision addressing the same issue and planning context. A discretion to admit late material must be exercised through a reasoned assessment of relevance, duplication and procedural fairness. Adequate reasons are required for the exercise of that discretion.

For housing land supply, sites without planning permission may be deliverable, but inclusion in an emerging plan or monitoring report is only a starting point. The inspector must assess availability, suitability and the realistic prospect of delivery within five years. The weight given to the evidence is a matter of planning judgment.

Wainhomes challenged under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 an inspector’s dismissal of an appeal concerning a proposal for up to 50 houses at Purton, Wiltshire. The inspector had included strategic sites identified in Wiltshire’s emerging Core Strategy when assessing the five-year housing land supply.

Two recent Calne appeal decisions, addressing the same emerging strategy and the interpretation of paragraph 47 of the National Planning Policy Framework, were sent to the inspector nine days before his decision. He did not consider them. The central issues were whether that omission was lawful, whether the inspector had correctly applied the deliverability test, and whether his reasons were adequate.

1. Ground 1 allowed. The Calne decisions were materially relevant. They concerned the same planning authority, emerging Core Strategy and housing-land-supply issue, and might have led to a different conclusion.
2. The inspector had a discretion to admit material received after the inquiry under rule 18 of the Town and Country Planning Appeals (Determination by Inspectors) (Enquiries Procedure) (England) Rules 2000. That discretion continued until the decision was made. It required a balancing exercise having regard to relevance, whether the material merely repeated existing evidence, and procedural fairness. On the facts, those factors favoured admission and any supplementary submissions could have been dealt with in writing.
3. The inspector’s stated reason that the material was received too late was unsustainable. He also failed to give intelligible and adequate reasons explaining why the decisions were excluded. If he had considered and rejected them, he would have needed to explain any departure from the approach taken in them, applying the principle in North Wiltshire DC v SoSE and Clover [1992] 605 P&CR 137.
4. Grounds 2 to 5 failed. Footnote 11 to paragraph 47 of the NPPF did not require planning permission before a site could be deliverable. Inclusion in an emerging plan or AMR could provide evidence of deliverability, but could not establish that all sites were deliverable, particularly where they lacked permission and were subject to objections. The weight of that evidence was for the inspector.
5. The decision letter, read fairly and as a whole, showed that the inspector had applied the correct test, undertaken a broad balancing exercise and given adequate reasons. His planning judgments were not irrational. The claim was therefore allowed only to the extent of setting aside the decision for the failure concerning the Calne decisions.

Not stated in the judgment.