Chichester District Council v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government & Anor

A neighbourhood plan must be construed by reference to its expressed policies, read in context. An underlying aim or supporting justification does not necessarily amount to an additional policy requirement. A proposal outside identified settlement boundaries or housing allocations conflicts with the plan only where the plan, properly construed, adopts a comprehensive strategy that governs such development. Where the plan is silent, the issue may be governed by the wider development plan. Planning inspectors must decide whether a proposal conflicts with a neighbourhood plan, but their decision letter is read fairly and as a whole. The court should avoid excessive legalism and respect the inspector’s planning judgment.

Chichester District Council brought a statutory review under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 challenging an inspector’s decision to allow Beechcroft Ltd’s appeal against refusal of permission for up to 34 dwellings at Southbourne.

The Council argued that the inspector had failed to decide whether the proposal conflicted with the Southbourne Parish Neighbourhood Plan and had irrationally distinguished between the plan’s policies and its aims. The site lay outside the settlement boundary and allocated sites, and north of a railway crossing which the plan sought to protect from increased congestion.

1. The statutory review was dismissed. The inspector had lawfully concluded that the proposal did not conflict with the neighbourhood plan, although it conflicted with parts of the Local Plan and was at odds with an underlying aim concerning the location of housing.
2. Paragraph 198 of the National Planning Policy Framework required the inspector to determine whether the proposal conflicted with the neighbourhood plan. Reading the decision letter fairly and as a whole, the inspector had done so. His references to the proposal being contrary to the development plan strategy, and to conflict with the Local Plan and the aim of the neighbourhood plan, did not leave the issue unresolved.
3. The distinction between the expressed policies of the neighbourhood plan and its underlying aims was rational. Under section 38A(2) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, a neighbourhood plan sets out policies concerning development and use of land. Following R(Cherkley Campaign Ltd) v Mole Valley DC [2014] EWCA Civ 567, supporting or explanatory material may assist interpretation but does not itself have the force of policy.
4. The decision in Crane v SSCLG [2015] EWHC 425 (Admin) was distinguishable. The plan in Crane was comprehensive, contained a windfall policy, and treated its allocations as the planned maximum. The Southbourne plan contained no equivalent policy and imposed no cap. Its Policies 1 and 2 were silent about development outside the settlement boundaries and allocated sites. That issue was therefore left to the Local Plan.
5. The inspector’s planning judgment was not irrational. He considered the neighbourhood plan, the absence of a five-year housing supply, the limited harm to the development plan strategy, the absence of material congestion effects, and the substantial housing benefits. Even if there had been an error, the court accepted that the inspector would inevitably have reached the same result in the planning balance.

• High Court (Administrative Court): Permission for statutory review was granted by Lang J on 26 March 2018. Judge Grubb dismissed the challenge to the inspector’s decision.