Campaign To Protect Rural England, Kent (CPRE), R (On the Application Of) v Dover District Council

A local planning authority must give reasons of sufficient particularity for the nature and importance of the issues before it. Where permission authorises major development causing substantial and irreversible harm to an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the authority must give substantial reasons which demonstrate proper engagement with the protective policy.

If a planning committee departs from its officers’ recommendation, especially in such a protected landscape, it must engage with their reasoning and explain briefly why it reached a different conclusion. A bare reference to balancing benefits against harm will not suffice where the applicable policy permits major development only in exceptional circumstances and in the public interest. This does not impose a generally onerous duty to give reasons for every grant of planning permission.

The local planning authority granted permission for a large residential, hotel and heritage development affecting land within the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Its officers had concluded that the proposed density would cause significant, long-term and irreversible landscape harm. They recommended substantial modifications, but the planning committee approved the scheme at its original density after accepting that the modifications might jeopardise viability.

The Administrative Court gave CPRE Kent permission to seek judicial review but dismissed the substantive claim. The claimant appealed on the remaining ground that the committee had failed properly to apply paragraph 116 of the National Planning Policy Framework and had failed to give legally adequate reasons.

The central issue was whether the minutes adequately explained the committee’s treatment of the development’s harm to the protected landscape, its departure from the officers’ recommendation and its reliance on the developer’s viability evidence.

1. Appeal allowed. The planning committee failed to give legally adequate reasons for granting permission. The authority’s decision should therefore be quashed. Simon LJ agreed with Laws LJ’s reasoning and specifically endorsed its limitation concerning the unusual nature of the case.

2. The committee had not failed to understand or apply paragraph 116 of the National Planning Policy Framework. The officers’ report repeatedly addressed that policy, and the minutes recognised that the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty enjoyed the highest level of protection. A failure to apply the governing test is distinct from a failure to give reasons demonstrating how that test was applied.

3. Reasons must be intelligible and adequate. Their required particularity depends on the nature of the issues. The principles stated in South Bucks v Porter (No 2) [2004] 1 WLR 1953 therefore had particular force where permission was granted for development of unprecedented scale in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

4. A local authority proposing to authorise development causing substantial harm to such an area must give substantial reasons. The committee also departed from its officers’ recommendation. In those circumstances it had to engage, at least briefly, with the officers’ reasoning and explain why it reached a different conclusion.

5. The minutes did not establish whether the committee accepted the officers’ assessment of significant and irreversible landscape harm. If it rejected that assessment, it failed to address a central policy issue. If it accepted the assessment, it did not explain why the limited viability material justified approving the original scheme without considering whether some proposed modifications could be adopted.

6. The committee’s statement that advantages outweighed harm suggested no more than a simple balance. Its reliance on effective screening was also unexplained in light of the officers’ conclusion that screening would remain largely ineffective.

7. The Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2011 required a statement of the main reasons and considerations and, where necessary, the principal mitigation measures. No separate statement was produced. The minutes therefore had to provide reasons of equivalent adequacy, but they did not grapple sufficiently with landscape harm.

8. The decision was confined to unusual circumstances. It did not impose a generally onerous reasons duty upon local planning authorities. The required detail remains dependent upon the nature and importance of the issues in the particular application.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): The appeal was allowed because the planning committee had failed to give legally adequate reasons for granting planning permission. [2016] EWCA Civ 936
2. Administrative Court: Mitting J granted permission to seek judicial review but dismissed the substantive claim on 16 December 2015. No neutral citation is stated in the judgment.