Larkfleet Ltd, R (on the application of) v South Kesteven District Council & Anor

For environmental impact assessment, the starting point is the development for which permission is sought. The planning authority must then consider whether nearby developments form part of the same substantial development, so that they require joint assessment as one project. If not, it must consider whether their effects require cumulative assessment under Part 1, paragraph 4 of Schedule 4 to the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2011.

The scope and detail of a cumulative assessment are matters of fact and planning judgment. The assessment need address the significant effects incrementally arising from the developments together; it need not reproduce a full assessment of every effect of the other development. Judicial intervention is warranted where the minimum regulatory requirements are unmet, but not merely because another assessment might have been more detailed.

Larkfleet Ltd sought judicial review of South Kesteven District Council’s decision of 27 November 2013 to grant Lincolnshire County Council planning permission for the Grantham Southern Quadrant Link Road.

The claimant argued that the environmental statement should have assessed the Link Road and the proposed Southern Quadrant Sustainable Urban Extension jointly as one project. Alternatively, it argued that the cumulative-effects assessment was inadequate under the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2011. The proposed urban extension was then at the stage of an illustrative masterplan and had not yet received planning permission.

The claim for judicial review was dismissed.

1. Joint assessment. The planning authority was entitled to treat the Link Road as a road-construction project under paragraph 10(f) of Schedule 2, rather than as part of the urban development project under paragraph 10(b). The correct question was whether the developments ought to be regarded as part of the same substantial development, or whether one was an integral part of an inevitably more substantial development.
2. The Link Road had an independent purpose. The Grantham Transport Strategy pre-dated the proposed urban extension and required a bypass to divert through traffic and heavy goods vehicles from the town centre. The fact that the road would also provide access to the extension did not make it part of the same development. Nor did separate applicants, developer funding, common land ownership, or co-operative working alter that conclusion.
3. The authority had nevertheless to consider cumulative effects. The Link Road and the urban extension were major nearby projects likely to have significant environmental effects. The authority properly assessed those effects cumulatively under paragraph 4 of Part 1 of Schedule 4.
4. Scope of cumulative assessment. Because the projects were not treated as one development, a full environmental assessment of the urban extension was not required for the Link Road application. The cumulative exercise was narrower. It concerned significant environmental effects incrementally increased by the existence of both developments. Its content was a matter of fact and judgment, informed by what could reasonably be assessed from the illustrative masterplan.
5. The environmental statement and supplementary reports adequately addressed the relevant topics, including cultural heritage, ecology, landscape and visual amenity. The authority was entitled to conclude that greater precision was not reasonably possible when the size, location, layout and appearance of future buildings were unknown. The Planning Committee was sufficiently informed for the purposes of deciding the application and conditions.
6. The court would intervene if the minimum requirements of the Regulations were not met. It would not substitute its own planning judgment for that of the authority where the authority had directed itself correctly, considered relevant matters and acted rationally. Criticisms based on the later 2014 application for the urban extension could not establish unlawfulness in the 2013 decision.

First-instance judicial review claim. No prior appellate decision was stated in the judgment.