Surringer, R (on the application of) v Vale of Glamorgan Council & Ors

In judicial review of a planning decision, the court does not reassess ecological or planning merits. It intervenes only on established public-law grounds, and planning judgments attract a particularly high threshold of review.

A planning authority may rely on a specialist regulator’s permit and regulatory responsibilities where the permit controls the relevant technical risk. The planning system should not duplicate a statutory pollution-control regime or substitute its judgment for that of the specialist regulator.

An officer’s report is addressed to informed committee members and need not contain exhaustive detail. Additional information supplied by an applicant in response to objections is not necessarily “any other information” requiring renewed EIA publicity. In any event, a procedural defect will not justify relief where the decision would have been no different and public participation was not materially impaired.

The claimant sought judicial review of Vale of Glamorgan Council’s decision to grant Raymond Brown Minerals & Recycling Limited planning permission for an incinerator bottom ash recycling facility at Barry.

The challenge concerned the classification of the ash as non-hazardous, alleged risks to human health and dust, consultation with Public Health Wales and local health boards, publication of further environmental information, ecological effects, and representations concerning other sites and past site uses.

The court also considered the relationship between planning control and an environmental permit issued by Natural Resources Wales, and whether the officer’s report adequately informed the planning committee.

1. Outcome. The application for judicial review failed. Grounds 1, 2 and 6 failed because the planning committee was entitled to proceed on the basis that only non-hazardous incinerator bottom ash would be brought to, stored and processed at the site. Grounds 3, 4 and 5 either disclosed no breach or sought impermissibly to reopen the planning merits.
2. Planning merits and specialist regulation. The court applied the principle that assessing the nature, extent and acceptability of environmental effects is for the planning decision-maker, subject to limited public-law review. The court must not use general public-law principles to substitute its own planning judgment. The council was entitled to rely on the permit issued by Natural Resources Wales, which prohibited the acceptance of hazardous waste, and on that regulator’s duty to enforce the permit. The planning regime was not required to duplicate the specialist pollution-control regime.
3. Classification and health. The officer’s statement that the bottom ash was non-hazardous was accurate in the context of the particular proposal and permit. The possibility that a testing protocol might permit occasional exceedances was a matter for the regulator and did not invalidate the planning decision. Dust and possible health effects had been addressed in the application documents, particularly the Dust Assessment, and the committee was entitled to conclude that suppression measures would produce no or minimal risk.
4. Inquiry, reports and consultation. The relevant question was whether the inquiry was so inadequate that no reasonable planning authority could regard the available material as sufficient. The officer’s report had to be read as a report to knowledgeable committee members, not as an exhaustive legal or factual treatise. The council was entitled to consult Public Health Wales through the email address previously used and was not required to verify receipt merely because no response was received. There was no statutory or common-law duty to consult the local health board; in any event, consulting both bodies would have been duplicatory.
5. Further environmental information. The July and August information responded to objectors’ concerns and reordered or re-emphasised material already available. It was not “any other information” requiring the full publicity regime under the EIA Regulations. Alternatively, any breach caused no material prejudice: the information was placed on the council’s website and was the subject of responses, and the decision would not have differed.
6. Final observations. The facility could only handle, store and process non-hazardous ash. If a future operator sought a similar permit, Natural Resources Wales would need to ensure an effective sampling and assessment regime.