Uprichard v Scottish Ministers and another (Scotland)

The adequacy of reasons given for a planning decision depends on the nature and context of the decision, the purpose served by the reasons and the audience to whom they are addressed. Reasons must be proper, adequate and intelligible, and must address the substantive points raised.

A decision-maker receiving numerous overlapping objections may group them by their general tenor and answer their gist. The law does not require a line-by-line response to every nuance. Reasons must be read as a whole and alongside documents forming part of the relevant context.

A resident challenged the Scottish Ministers’ approval, with modifications, of the Fife Structure Plan 2006–2026. She maintained that their statement of reasons did not adequately answer her objection that the proposed scale of development around St Andrews exceeded the landscape’s capacity.

The Lord Ordinary rejected her application under section 238(1)(b) of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997. The Inner House refused her reclaiming motion: [2011] CSIH 59; 2012 SC 172. In a separate opinion, [2011] CSIH 77, it also upheld awards of expenses in favour of Fife Council.

The issues were whether the Ministers had complied with their duty under section 10(10) to give appropriate reasons, whether any failure had substantially prejudiced the appellant, and whether the Inner House had erred concerning expenses.

1. Appeal dismissed unanimously. Lord Reed delivered the judgment, with which Lord Hope, Lord Kerr, Lord Carnwath and Lord Carloway agreed.

2. The adequacy of reasons depended on the nature and context of the decision, the purpose served by the reasons and the context in which they were given. Reasons had to be proper, adequate and intelligible and had to deal with substantive points. A sense of proportion was essential. Ministers receiving thousands of overlapping objections could group them by their general tenor, summarise their gist and respond collectively. They were not required to address every nuance line by line.

3. Section 10(10) of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997 did not require the Ministers to provide their own justification for the planning authority’s policies and proposals. Regulation 6 of the Town and Country Planning (Structure and Local Plans) (Scotland) Regulations 1983 placed responsibility for their reasoned justification on the planning authority. The Ministers’ reasons were also addressed to readers familiar with the plan and the issues.

4. The challenged reason concerning landscape capacity could not be read in isolation. The schedule as a whole explained that the plan offered appropriate environmental protection, that St Andrews should accommodate part of Fife’s housing requirement and that the local-plan process would determine the allocation capable of being accommodated with mitigation and landscape enhancement. Read with the structure plan and strategic environmental assessment, the reasons intelligibly disclosed why the objections had been rejected. They revealed no failure to consider the potential effect on the landscape and no substantial prejudice.

5. The Inner House was entitled to consider that the appellant had pursued the proceedings without seeking a protective expenses order. Guidance for such an application was already well known, despite the absence of a governing rule of court. Its assessment of the adequacy of the financial information provided was not open to further argument.

6. By way of postscript, the court stated that the appeal raised no arguable point of law of general public importance and was an inappropriate use of its time. Scottish counsel certifying an appeal as reasonable must respect the public interest in reserving the Supreme Court’s attention for appeals raising such questions.

1. United Kingdom Supreme Court: The court unanimously dismissed the appeal: [2013] UKSC 21.
2. Inner House of the Court of Session: The court refused the reclaiming motion on the merits: [2011] CSIH 59; 2012 SC 172. It upheld the awards of expenses in a separate opinion: [2011] CSIH 77.
3. Outer House of the Court of Session: Lord Uist rejected the statutory challenge: [2010] CSOH 105.