Timmins, R (on the application of) v Gedling Borough Council & Anor

In applying paragraph 88 of the National Planning Policy Framework, very special circumstances in the Green Belt require the decision-maker to weigh the proposed benefits against the combined harm caused by inappropriate development and any other harm, including harm outside the Green Belt. An officer report must be read as a whole and in context. It will warrant judicial intervention only where its overall effect significantly misleads the committee on material matters. The existence of need for a planning facility is ordinarily a matter of planning judgment, subject to rationality. A previous inspector’s decision is a material consideration, but the authority may reach its own conclusion where it has regard to that decision and explains why the evidence and circumstances permit a different assessment.

Gedling Borough Council granted planning permission for a crematorium on Green Belt land at Lambley. The claimant, a local resident, sought judicial review of the redetermination decision after an earlier permission for the site had been quashed in R (Timmins) v Gedling Borough Council, [2014] EWHC 654 (Admin), and that decision had been upheld on appeal, [2015] EWCA Civ 10.

The challenge alleged errors in the treatment of Green Belt and landscape harm, the weight given to an inspector’s decision dismissing a nearby crematorium appeal, the assessment of present and future need, and the search for alternative sites. The central issues were whether the officer’s report materially misled the planning committee and whether the decision was irrational or legally erroneous.

1. Claim dismissed. The officer’s report correctly directed the committee to apply paragraph 88 of the National Planning Policy Framework. Very special circumstances had to clearly outweigh Green Belt harm by reason of inappropriateness together with any other harm. The report expressly identified landscape and limited amenity harm and, read as a whole, did not require those matters to be considered only after the very special circumstances assessment.
2. Officer reports are read as a whole and in a common-sense manner for an informed readership. The report’s separate treatment of planning considerations did not amount to impermissible fragmentation or materially mislead the committee.
3. Consistency with earlier decisions is material, but the decision-maker is not bound by an inspector’s decision. The Council was entitled to give substantial weight to the Orchard Farm decision while declining to treat it as determinative, because the inspector had given limited weight to Westerleigh’s late evidence and the evidence before the Council had subsequently been supplemented. The report properly advised members to consider all current circumstances.
4. The existence and extent of need were matters of planning judgment subject to rationality. The Council could use peak monthly demand, annualised capacity, and a rational uplift allowing for population growth, pandemics, variation above the mean and double booking. It could also consider travel times, distress to mourners and delays in obtaining cremation slots. The evidence supplied a rational basis for treating 30 minutes as a local rule of thumb, not an inflexible policy rule.
5. The alternative-site search did not need to be rerun merely because the cemetery element was removed. The search criteria still applied to the crematorium and associated works. The Council had properly investigated Gedling Colliery and was entitled to conclude, on the evidence of its allocations, landowners and independent agents, that no suitable and available alternative existed.

No error of law, whether individual or cumulative, was established. The claim was dismissed.

The judgment records an earlier challenge in the same litigation: R (Timmins) v Gedling Borough Council was quashed by the High Court, [2014] EWHC 654 (Admin), and the Court of Appeal upheld that decision, [2015] EWCA Civ 10. This judgment concerned the Council’s redetermination and dismissed the present claim.