Oakley v South Cambridgeshire District Council & Anor

Where planning permission is granted for development which departs from the development plan and affects the Green Belt, the authority is subject to a particular onus to justify its decision. If its reasoning is not otherwise sufficiently transparent, the common law requires it to give adequate reasons.

The duty protects effective public participation, accountability and the ability to test legality. A committee’s departure from an officer’s recommendation does not by itself make its decision aberrant or create the duty. It may, however, make the reasoning impossible to infer. Reasons need not be separately stated where the officer’s report or the circumstances make the committee’s reasoning clear.

Oakley v South Cambridgeshire District Council & Anor concerned planning permission for a football stadium and associated facilities on Green Belt land outside Sawston. The Council’s planning officer recommended refusal. The planning committee approved the development in principle, contrary to that recommendation, and an officer later issued permission subject to conditions.

The claimant sought judicial review, alleging a common-law duty to give reasons for the grant. Jay J dismissed the claim: [2016] EWHC 570 (Admin). The appeal concerned whether reasons were required where the permission departed from the development plan, involved Green Belt development and the committee’s reasoning could not be identified from the available planning material.

1. Appeal allowed. The Council was in breach of a common-law duty to provide reasons for granting planning permission. The court declared that breach, but deferred the question of consequential relief so that the parties could make written submissions.

2. The grant both departed from the development plan and permitted development in the Green Belt. Those features engaged a substantial onus of justification. The protective policy reflected in the National Planning Policy Framework, the close interest of affected local residents, and the need for transparent public decision-making made reasons necessary if the authority’s reasoning was not otherwise clear.

3. A committee’s disagreement with an officer’s recommendation is not, without more, an aberrant decision requiring explanation. The committee is the decision-maker, not an appellate body reviewing its officer. However, disagreement with a detailed recommendation may strengthen the case for reasons and prevent an inference that the committee adopted the officer’s reasoning.

4. Reasons may be inferred where a committee follows an officer’s recommendation, or where the report and circumstances reveal a simple contrary planning judgment. This was not such a case. The officer had assessed numerous distinct harms and benefits. The available documents did not reveal which harms the committee accepted, which policy breaches it found, or which benefits it considered sufficient to clearly outweigh Green Belt harm.

5. The notice’s reference to an available report did not create a legitimate expectation that the committee would provide a further statement of reasons. Nor did regulation 7 of the Openness of Local Government Bodies Regulations 2014 require the delegated officer to obtain and publish reasons for the committee’s earlier in-principle approval.

6. Elias LJ did not decide whether a common-law duty arises whenever reasons for a planning permission are opaque. Sales LJ expressly considered that no universal duty should be imposed. Both judgments supported the duty on the particular, weighty facts of this case.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): allowed the appeal and declared that the Council had breached a common-law duty to give reasons: [2017] EWCA Civ 71.
• High Court, Planning Court: dismissed the judicial-review claim: [2016] EWHC 570 (Admin).