South Gloucestershire Council v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities And Local Government

In a challenge under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, the court reviews legality, not the planning merits or the weight given to competing considerations. An Inspector’s decision letter must be read fairly, as a whole and in a straightforward manner by a well-informed reader. Reasons need address the principal important controversial issues, but need not rehearse every argument or recite every policy criterion. A reasons challenge succeeds only where the decision is unintelligible or gives rise to substantial doubt about whether the decision-maker misunderstood the law or reached a rational conclusion. Prematurity is a planning judgment. Where the issue is secondary rather than central, an Inspector may give it little weight without expressly reproducing the relevant guidance, provided the reasoning shows that the guidance was understood and applied.

The Council challenged under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 an Inspector’s decision allowing an appeal against refusal of outline planning permission for a substantial mixed residential and community development at Cleve Park, Thornbury.

The Inspector accepted that the Council lacked a five-year housing land supply, applied the presumption in favour of sustainable development, and gave little weight to the Council’s prematurity argument based on the emerging Joint Spatial Plan and future local plan. Permission to challenge the decision was granted only on the ground that the reasons for rejecting prematurity were inadequate. The central issue was whether the decision letter made the Inspector’s reasoning sufficiently clear and intelligible.

1. The application was dismissed. The Council failed to establish that the Inspector’s reasons for giving little weight to prematurity were legally inadequate.
2. Under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, the court applies ordinary judicial review principles. It may intervene for legal misdirection, irrationality, failure to consider relevant matters or procedural impropriety. The weighing of planning considerations and the exercise of planning judgment remain matters for the decision-maker.
3. A decision letter must be read fairly and in good faith, as a whole, in a straightforward manner and by a well-informed reader familiar with the principal issues. The duty to give reasons requires intelligible and adequate reasons addressing the principal important controversial issues. It does not require every argument or policy criterion to be set out expressly.
4. The Inspector was entitled to deal with prematurity under “Other planning matters”, because it was not a main issue in the appeal. It had not been a reason for refusal, was not included among the principal issues, and was raised only at the appeal stage as a secondary point.
5. The Planning Practice Guidance stated that prematurity would rarely justify refusal unless the development was so substantial, or its cumulative effect so significant, that permission would undermine the plan-making process by predetermining central decisions, and the emerging plan was at an advanced stage. The Inspector did not need to recite that guidance. Reading the decision letter in context, he had applied it and accepted that the proposal was not sufficiently substantial or significant to undermine the emerging Joint Spatial Plan.
6. The Inspector’s reasons were specific to the application and did not create substantial prejudice. The Council’s challenge was in substance an attempt to contest the merits of the Inspector’s planning judgment, and those arguments had already been excluded from the permitted grounds.

The judgment under challenge was an Inspector’s decision dated 3 May 2018 allowing the Interested Party’s planning appeal and granting outline planning permission. Permission for the statutory challenge was refused on other grounds but granted on the adequacy-of-reasons ground. The High Court dismissed the claim.