Milwood Land (Stafford) Ltd v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government & Anor

In a challenge to a planning inspector’s decision, the development plan must be read as a whole, with attention to its strategic objectives and the policies implementing them. Interim criteria for assessing proposals do not necessarily provide an exhaustive code. A policy favouring brownfield land may, in context, restrict substantial additional greenfield development where the adopted plan has allocated sufficient greenfield sites to meet identified housing requirements. A five-year housing-land supply is assessed at the date of the decision, but an inspector may attach substantial weight to a recently examined plan and its evidence base. A plan is not out-of-date merely because a later development-plan document will supplement it.

The claimant sought to quash an inspector’s dismissal of its section 78 appeal against refusal of planning permission for up to 320 dwellings on greenfield land near Stafford. The inspector found that the proposal conflicted with Policy SP7 of the Plan for Stafford Borough 2011–31, that the Council could demonstrate a five-year housing-land supply, and that no material considerations justified permission.

The claimant challenged the decision under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. It alleged errors in the construction and application of Policy SP7, failure properly to assess housing supply at the decision date, and failure to address the argument that the absence of an adopted site-allocations document made the relevant policies out-of-date.

1. Application refused. None of the three grounds established an error of law.
2. Under section 38(6) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, the proposal had to be assessed against the development plan as a whole. Policy SP7/4 applied broadly to development proposals and was not confined to plan-making or to proposals within established settlement boundaries. The criteria in Policy SP7/3 and paragraph 6.63 provided a useful framework before boundaries were fixed, but were not exclusively determinative.
3. The inspector was entitled to identify the plan’s strategic objectives: maximising brownfield redevelopment and limiting greenfield release to land necessary to meet the identified housing requirement. The three strategic development locations were treated by the adopted plan as necessary and sufficient to meet that requirement. The challenged development therefore conflicted with the plan’s strategic objectives and Policy SP7/4.
4. The inspector had to assess housing supply as at the date of his decision. Read as a whole, his decision letter showed that he did so. He was entitled to give considerable weight to the recent examination of the plan and to the plan inspector’s conclusion that adoption would provide a robust five-year supply, while testing that conclusion against the Council’s updated figures and the deliverability of the strategic development locations.
5. The absence of an adopted Site Allocations Development Plan Document did not make the recently adopted housing policies silent or out-of-date. The relevant housing-supply policies were contained in the adopted plan. A policy is not out-of-date merely because it may later be supplemented.
6. The decision letter gave adequate and intelligible reasons on the principal controversial issues. The statutory challenge was determined on traditional judicial-review grounds, and the court was not permitted to conduct a rehearing on planning merits.

The claim arose from an inspector’s dismissal, on 3 December 2014, of the claimant’s section 78 planning appeal against the Council’s refusal of permission. The High Court refused the section 288 challenge.