Gladman Developments Ltd v Secretary of State for Housing Communities And Local Government & Anor

A previous planning appeal decision addressing the same issue is a material consideration. Consistency does not require identical outcomes, but an inspector departing from an earlier materially indistinguishable decision must identify the distinction or explain the departure. A collection of inconsistent decisions does not remove that obligation.

Reasons are inadequate where an inspector merely refers to later authority or a series of decisions without engaging with the earlier decision’s material reasoning. The assessment of whether a policy is out of date under paragraph 215 of the National Planning Policy Framework requires careful consideration of the policy, the Framework and the evidence. Obiter observations in an appellate judgment cannot be treated as binding legal principles.

The claimant challenged the Secretary of State’s inspector’s refusal of planning permission for residential development outside a settlement envelope in Central Bedfordshire. The development conflicted with policy DM4 of the Central Bedfordshire Core Strategy and Development Management Policies.

The inspector concluded that DM4 was not out of date, gave it moderate weight and did not apply the tilted balance in paragraph 14 of the National Planning Policy Framework. A previous Meppershall appeal had reached the opposite conclusion on the status and weight of DM4. The Secretary of State conceded that the inspector had failed to give adequate reasons for departing from that decision. The central issue was whether the inspector had lawfully addressed the earlier decision and explained the different conclusion.

1. The claim succeeded and the inspector’s decision was quashed. The matter was remitted for redetermination. The court rejected the submission that the outcome would inevitably be the same.
2. Under section 70(2) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, a previous appeal decision concerning precisely the same issue is a material consideration. The principle in North Wiltshire DC v Secretary of State for the Environment [1993] 65 P&CR 137 applied. An inspector remains free to disagree with an earlier decision, but must identify a relevant distinction or give reasons for departing from it. The existence of several decisions pointing in different directions does not disapply that principle.
3. The inspector’s reasons were legally inadequate. His reference to Gladman Developments v Daventry District Council [2016] EWCA Civ 1146 and to a series of appeal decisions did not explain why he rejected the reasoning in the Meppershall decision. In particular, he failed to engage with the finding that strict application of DM4 would frustrate the achievement of a five-year housing land supply, and failed adequately to address the alleged inconsistency between DM4 and paragraphs 17 and 113 of the Framework.
4. The court clarified that paragraphs 41–46 of Gladman Developments v Daventry District Council were obiter and expressed contingently. They did not establish a legal principle that permissions granted contrary to a policy necessarily demonstrate that the policy remains up to date. The question required evaluation under paragraph 215 of the Framework against the policy’s wording and the evidence.
5. The error was material because the status of DM4 affected whether the tilted balance in paragraph 14 of the Framework was engaged. It could not be said that the result on redetermination would necessarily be unchanged.

The judgment was a first-instance judicial review of an inspector’s decision dated 16 August 2018 refusing planning permission. No lower court judgment is stated.