Cherkley Campaign Ltd, R (on the application of) v Mole Valley District Council & Anor

When determining conformity with a local plan, the decision-maker must focus on its detailed policies. Supporting text may assist interpretation, but it is not policy, has no independent force and cannot add a criterion omitted from the policy. A saving direction preserves a saved policy together with supporting text relevant to its interpretation, not as freestanding policy.

Planning policy is interpreted objectively in context, while evaluative application normally remains for the planning authority. A court should be slow to find a planning judgment irrational. Reasons for permission must enable readers to understand the decision in its context; even where permission departs from officers’ advice, they need not rehearse every objection or repeat policy language if the reasoning sufficiently shows lawful consideration.

Cherkley Campaign Ltd obtained judicial review of Mole Valley District Council’s grant of permission to Longshot Cherkley Court Ltd for a hotel, spa and 18-hole golf course on the Cherkley Estate. The estate lay in the Green Belt and an Area of Great Landscape Value; part of the golf course lay in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Haddon-Cave J quashed the permission, holding that the committee had erred concerning local-plan need and location requirements, landscape impact, Green Belt policy and reasons: [2013] EWHC 2582 (Admin). The Council and Longshot appealed. The central question was whether the committee’s contrary-to-officer decision disclosed an error of law, irrationality or legally inadequate reasons.

1. Appeals allowed unanimously. Richards LJ, with whom Underhill and Floyd LJJ agreed, set aside the quashing order and the related costs order.

2. Under Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 s 38(6), conformity was to be judged against the saved detailed policy, Policy REC12. The local plan’s supporting text was relevant to construing that policy, but was neither policy nor part of it. It could not independently impose a requirement that applicants demonstrate a need for golf facilities, or that proposals be directed away from the designated landscapes, where REC12 contained neither requirement. The saving direction did not remove interpretative supporting text, but it did not elevate that text into policy.

3. Alternatively, if the supporting text imposed a need requirement, “need” bore its broad contextual meaning. It could be met by unmet demand for the proposed elite facility; it did not require proof that additional facilities were necessary in the public interest. The committee’s conclusion was rationally open on the material before it.

4. NPPF paragraph 116 applied to major developments in an AONB. One fairway and one tee within the AONB, although part of a course adjacent to it, could not reasonably make the whole development a major development in the AONB. Landscape evidence and officers’ advice disclosed a balance for planning judgment. The committee’s conclusion that the overall landscape character would not be compromised was not perverse, and its reasons showed lawful consideration of REC12’s conservation-and-enhancement requirement.

5. On Green Belt policy, the committee could be taken to have applied the very-special-circumstances test set out in the officers’ reports. Its assessment of openness and identified economic and environmental benefits could rationally support the conclusion that the relevant concerns were overcome. The exceptionally full reasons adequately explained a lawful departure from officers’ recommendations.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): appeals allowed; the planning permission was restored by setting aside the quashing order and related costs order.
• High Court, Administrative Court: Haddon-Cave J allowed the judicial-review claim and quashed the planning permission: [2013] EWHC 2582 (Admin).