RLT Built Environment Ltd, R (on the application of) v The Cornwall Council & Anor

Strategic environmental assessment is procedural. An authority must identify, describe and evaluate every realistic alternative capable of meeting the plan’s objectives, but need not assess theoretical options, obvious non-starters, or environmentally inferior alternatives. Whether an alternative is reasonable is primarily an evaluative judgment for the authority.

A neighbourhood plan need not meet objectively assessed strategic housing needs. A strategic development plan may allocate a housing target to a neighbourhood area, leaving the neighbourhood plan to determine how that target should be delivered.

Compatibility with article 8 requires a broad prospective assessment of the plan and its safeguards. Planning authorities enjoy a wide margin of judgment, provided that the scheme as a whole permits proportionality to be considered when enforcement occurs.

The claimant sought judicial review of Cornwall Council’s decision to progress the St Ives Neighbourhood Development Plan to a local referendum. The plan included a principal-residence restriction for new open-market housing in Policy H2 and restrictions on further development after 1,100 dwellings in Policy H3.

The claimant argued that both policies breached the requirements for strategic environmental assessment and that Policy H2 was incompatible with article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The court considered whether reasonable alternatives had been assessed, whether the 1,100-dwelling figure had been treated unlawfully, and whether the plan was compatible with Convention rights.

1. Disposition. All three grounds failed. Permission to proceed was granted at the rolled-up hearing, but the substantive application was refused.
2. Strategic environmental assessment. The assessment had to address all reasonable alternatives capable of meeting the relevant policy objectives. That did not extend to every theoretically possible option. Alternatives incapable of achieving the objectives, or obvious non-starters, required no assessment or express reasons. Because the SEA regime is environmentally focused, an alternative also had to be environmentally preferable or at least environmentally equal to the preferred option. The proposed increase in market housing was not a reasonable alternative to Policy H2: there was no evidence that it would reduce the proportion of second homes or be environmentally equal. The same reasoning applied to Policy H3. The authority had also considered the suggested higher housing threshold before deciding to proceed.
3. Housing allocation. The obligation to assess objectively assessed housing need lay with the strategic development plan, not the qualifying body preparing the neighbourhood plan. The Cornwall allocation of 1,100 dwellings could be treated as a target for St Ives even though the county-wide housing requirement was a minimum. Policy H3 was restrictive but not irrational, and it was open to the Council to require further development to be affordable-housing-led.
4. Article 8. Compatibility under paragraph 12(4)(a) required a broad prospective judgment about whether the policy was in general harmony with Convention rights. The court assumed, for the purposes of the claim, that article 8 might be engaged and that a future interference might arise. Policy H2 pursued the economic well-being of the country and the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. The enforcement regime supplied safeguards: proportionality could be considered by the planning authority, on appeal, in the High Court and, where relevant, by the criminal courts. The policy was sufficiently certain, and the Council was entitled to conclude that its effects were necessary and proportionate within the wide planning margin.