Cooper Estates Strategic Land Ltd v Royal Tunbridge Wells Borough Council

A site allocations plan need only be assessed against the adopted core strategy and its defined statutory and policy role. It need not quantify every specialist housing need or make specific allocations for that need unless the core strategy expressly or necessarily requires it. Whether general housing allocations can meet specialist needs is ordinarily a planning judgment.

A plan may remain sound despite later evidence indicating that the core strategy will require replacement. Later evidence need not be incorporated where doing so would rewrite the core strategy. A Green Belt review required in parallel with plan preparation may be deferred where the information is unnecessary to soundness and a more satisfactory review is being undertaken through a replacement local plan.

The claimant challenged the Council’s adoption of its Site Allocations Local Plan under section 113(3) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. It argued that the Inspector had failed to address the need for specialist housing for older people, had misunderstood the core strategy’s Green Belt requirements, and had wrongly disregarded evidence arising after adoption of the core strategy.

The Inspector had recommended adoption subject to main modifications. The plan allocated sufficient land to meet the core strategy’s general housing requirement, but did not make a specific allocation for Use Class C2 housing or review the Green Belt. The central questions were whether those matters rendered the plan unsound, legally non-compliant, or inconsistent with the adopted core strategy.

1. Claim dismissed. Permission was granted, but the court refused to quash the Site Allocations Local Plan.
2. The statutory examination of a development plan document is not a series of mini-inquiries into individual objections. The Inspector must give reasons addressing the major issues relevant to soundness, legal compliance and policy consistency. He need not deal separately with every participant’s principal argument or provide reasons in the form appropriate to a planning appeal. The court cautioned against applying South Bucks DC v Porter (No 2) [2004] UKHL 33 without qualification to this context.
3. Soundness and consistency involve planning judgments. Such judgments are unlawful only on ordinary public law grounds: Oxted Residential Ltd v Tandridge DC [2016] EWCA Civ 414. The Inspector was entitled to conclude that the core strategy did not require the Site Allocations Plan to quantify a specific Use Class C2 need or to make specific C2 allocations. General allocations and other means of delivery could suffice.
4. The core strategy required a review of Rural Fringe land, but did not require that review to produce additional land. The Inspector could reasonably conclude that the absence of a review did not make the plan unsound or inconsistent, given the remaining Rural Fringe land, the absence of a housing shortfall, and the more satisfactory replacement local plan then being prepared.
5. Later evidence did not have to be treated as requiring additional allocations. The authorities in Gladman Developments Ltd v Wokingham BC [2014] EWHC 2320 (Admin), R (Gladman Developments Ltd) v Aylesbury Vale DC [2014] EWHC 4323 (Admin) and Oxted Residential Ltd v Tandridge DC [2016] EWCA Civ 414 supported judging soundness by reference to the plan’s scope and purpose. The words “and beyond” did not convert the plan into a plan for later needs or require it to rewrite the core strategy.

First-instance judicial review challenge. The court granted permission but rejected the claim and refused to quash the Site Allocations Local Plan.