Steer v Secretary of State for Communities And Local Government & Ors

When deciding whether development affects the setting of a heritage asset, a decision-maker must consider the full range of relevant attributes. Visual or physical connection may be important, but it is neither essential nor determinative. Historic, social, economic, associational and other non-visual relationships may contribute to setting and significance.

A planning inspector who treats visual connection as a necessary condition adopts an unlawfully narrow approach. Where that error may have affected the statutory and policy assessments, the court should not substitute its own planning judgment. The decision should be quashed.

The claimant challenged under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 an inspector’s decision allowing two appeals for outline residential development in Allestree, Derbyshire.

The principal issue was whether the appeal site formed part of the setting of Kedleston Hall, a Grade I listed building, because of its historic agricultural, social and economic relationship with the Hall and its estate, despite limited or absent inter-visibility. The claimant also challenged the adequacy of the inspector’s reasons.

1. The application was granted and the inspector’s decision was quashed.
2. Under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, the court applies ordinary judicial review principles. It does not review the planning merits or substitute its own planning judgment.
3. The inspector had accepted that the Hall and Park had historic, social and economic connections with the appeal site. However, he treated a physical or visual connection as necessary to establish that the site formed part of the Hall’s setting. He therefore set those non-visual connections aside when determining the issue.
4. That approach was inconsistent with the broad meaning of setting in the NPPF and the Planning Practice Guidance. Setting means the surroundings in which a heritage asset is experienced. Although views often matter, experience may also be shaped by noise, dust, vibration, historic relationships, land use, functional relationships, cultural associations and other perceptual or associational attributes.
5. The inspector’s reliance on the possibility that otherwise remote estate land might fall within the setting did not justify imposing a visual-connection requirement. The geographical concept of surroundings itself supplies an appropriate limit.
6. The error was material. Had the correct approach been adopted, the site might have been found to lie within the Hall’s setting. Section 66(1) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 and relevant NPPF policies would then have applied, including the requirement to give considerable importance and weight to preserving the setting of a listed building.
7. It was not possible to conclude that the outcome would necessarily have been the same. The court therefore declined to exercise its discretion not to quash the decision. Ground 2, concerning reasons, was unnecessary to determine.

The judgment records an application for judicial review under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The High Court granted the application and quashed the Secretary of State’s decision.