Adamson v Secretary of State for Communities And Local Government

A planning inspector’s decision will not be quashed merely because an objector later identifies additional factual points or disagrees with the assessment of planning evidence. The court examines the material before the inspector and asks whether the decision was legally flawed. A planning application may include land owned by another person, provided the statutory notification requirements are met and the proposed development is capable of being delivered. Conditions and planning obligations must be read together, and a suspected future failure to enforce a condition is not itself a ground for quashing permission. Procedural notification complaints require evidence of a material shortcoming and some possible effect on the fairness or substance of the hearing.

The claimant challenged under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 an inspector’s decision granting outline permission for 41 houses and associated works at Edgerton, Huddersfield. The local planning authority had failed to determine the application, so the developer appealed to the Secretary of State. The claimant raised issues concerning affordable housing viability, an earlier 1967 permission, the application plan, the relationship between planning conditions and a unilateral undertaking, and notification of a rescheduled hearing.

1. Challenge dismissed. The inspector was entitled to rely on the viability evidence before him. The developer’s appraisal had been independently assessed, the alleged double counting of litigation costs had been addressed, and the inspector had a satisfactory evidential basis for accepting an affordable housing contribution of approximately £248,555.
2. The court would not entertain new factual issues which had not been raised before the inspector. The inspector was entitled to proceed on the common understanding of the parties that the 1967 permission had been implemented. In any event, that permission played no significant role in the inspector’s reasoning, which rested principally on the site’s allocation and the National Planning Policy Framework.
3. A planning application need not be confined to land owned by the developer. Non-ownership may raise a planning issue if it prevents delivery of an important part of the scheme, but that was not the position here. The developer could provide the proposed path entirely on its own land.
4. The planning conditions and unilateral undertaking imposed different requirements at different stages. There was no inconsistency between the condition requiring construction of the footpath before occupation and the undertaking concerning open-space works and management. A possible failure to enforce a condition would provide a basis for enforcement proceedings, not for quashing an otherwise lawful permission.
5. There was no established breach of notification requirements. Even if there had been a shortcoming, it had no material effect: the inspector was fully aware of the extent of local opposition and there was no evidence that absent participants would have supplied materially different information.
6. An order for the Secretary of State’s costs was made in the sum of £9,012.15.

• Secretary of State’s planning appeal: Following the local authority’s failure to determine the application, the developer appealed. An inspector granted outline permission on 11 September 2015.
• High Court (Administrative Court): The claimant’s statutory challenge under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 was dismissed.