The Midcounties Co-Operative Ltd, R (On the Application Of) v Forest of Dean District Council

A local planning authority must identify the substance of the planning issues it has decided, particularly where it departs from its officers’ recommendation and from an earlier materially similar decision. A collective authority’s reasons are found primarily in its formal resolution. Individual councillors’ statements do not ordinarily establish the authority’s reasoning.

Where a previous decision is materially relevant, the authority must consider the importance of consistency and give reasons for departing from it. A resolution granting planning permission must address the substance of an applicable retail impact test where that issue was material. The court will not substitute its own planning judgment, and statutory relief will not be refused unless it is highly likely that the outcome would not have been substantially different.

The claimant, which owned a town-centre supermarket, challenged planning permission granted by the defendant to Aldi for an out-of-centre discount food store at Tufthorn Avenue, Coleford.

The defendant’s officers had recommended refusal on the grounds that the proposal failed the sequential test and would significantly harm the vitality and viability of the town centre. The full Council nevertheless granted permission. Its resolution stated that the sequential test was passed, but did not address retail impact or explain the departure from the defendant’s earlier refusal of a materially similar application.

The claim concerned the legality of the Council’s approach to the sequential test, the adequacy of its consideration of retail impact, consistency with its earlier decision, and whether relief should be refused under section 31(2A) of the Senior Courts Act 1981.

1. Ground 1 dismissed. The court treated the Council’s formal resolution as expressing its genuine reasons, there being no allegation of bad faith. Statements made by individual councillors during debate did not determine the reasoning of the collective body. The resolution correctly directed itself to whether the alternative site was suitable for the broad type of development, rather than whether it met Aldi’s particular requirements. The Council was reasonably entitled, as a matter of planning judgment, to conclude that the sequential test was satisfied.
2. The irrationality threshold is high in planning cases. The court must not substitute its own assessment for that of the democratically elected planning authority. The evidence before the Council was not so one-sided that its conclusion was irrational.
3. The reasons given in the resolution were adequate in relation to the sequential test. No statutory duty to give reasons for the grant of planning permission arose, and the required degree of particularity depended on the issues being decided. The court would not require reasons for reasons.
4. Ground 3 allowed. The Council had not reached a final decision on the retail impact issue. The resolution contained no reference to retail impact, harm to the town centre, significance or degree of impact, linked trips, or the impact on investment identified in paragraph 26 of the NPPF. The issue was material and had not been addressed in substance.
5. Ground 2 allowed. The Council’s reasons did not refer to the earlier refusal of the materially similar application or its reasons, and therefore did not demonstrate that it had considered the importance of consistency or explained its departure. The officers’ report could not supply the missing reasoning because the Council had rejected the officers’ recommendation.
6. The court declined to refuse relief under section 31(2A) of the Senior Courts Act 1981. It was not highly likely that the outcome would have been substantially the same. The Council had failed to ask the correct questions, and the eventual planning judgment belonged to the Council, not the court. The planning permission was quashed.

This was a first-instance judicial review. The judgment records that an earlier, materially similar planning application had been refused by the defendant in 2015, but that was part of the factual background rather than an appeal.