Oxton Farm v Harrogate Borough Council

The five-year housing-land-supply threshold is binary. If an authority can demonstrate five years’ supply, the tilted balance in paragraph 11(d) of the National Planning Policy Framework is not engaged on that ground, however small the surplus. It may nevertheless be engaged because other important development-plan policies are out of date.

Whether a policy is out of date, and the weight given to it, are matters of planning judgment subject to public law review. The standard method for assessing local housing need was not mandatory under the applicable policy. A justified alternative approach was permissible. Where a planning committee follows its officer’s recommendation, the officer’s report will ordinarily disclose the committee’s reasons.

Harrogate Borough Council granted outline planning permission for 21 houses and a village shop on countryside land outside the settlements identified for development in its core strategy. The planning officer considered that the authority had a 5.02-year housing-land supply but advised that relevant development-plan policies were out of date and should receive limited weight.

Oxton Farm challenged the permission. It contended that newly published household projections were a mandatory consideration, that they undermined the officer’s assessment, and that the council had failed to give adequate reasons. HHJ Klein dismissed the claim in [2019] EWHC 1370 (Admin).

The appeal concerned whether the tilted balance had lawfully been engaged, whether the projections had to be considered, and whether further reasons were required.

1. Appeal dismissed unanimously. The officer’s report, read fairly and as a whole, proceeded on the basis that the council could demonstrate a five-year housing-land supply. The tilted balance was therefore not engaged because of a housing shortfall. It was engaged because policies SG1, SG2 and SG3, including the settlement limits, were considered out of date.

2. The five-year-supply question is binary. A supply exceeding five years prevents the tilted balance from being triggered on that particular basis, whether the excess is large or small. That does not prevent the balance from being triggered because other important policies are out of date. Whether such policies are out of date is a matter of planning judgment.

3. Even if the report could be read as giving both a valid and an invalid reason for engaging the tilted balance, its advice did not seriously misdirect the committee. The valid conclusion that relevant policies were out of date independently engaged paragraph 11(d) of the National Planning Policy Framework.

4. The newly published household projections were not a mandatory consideration. The applicable national policy did not require use of the standard method for assessing local housing need. That method supplied a minimum starting point, and the council could use a justified alternative approach producing a higher target. Its emerging plan could also receive weight under paragraph 48.

5. Neither mathematical precision in calculating housing supply nor a prescribed weighting of a housing surplus was required. The extent of any surplus and the weight given to restrictive or out-of-date policies were matters for the decision-maker’s planning judgment. Failure to use the projections was not irrational.

6. No further reasons were required. The committee followed the officer’s recommendation, so it could fairly be inferred that it accepted the report’s reasoning. The exceptional features which had required express reasons in other planning cases were absent from this routine decision.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): The appeal was dismissed unanimously. The grant of planning permission was lawful: [2020] EWCA Civ 805.
• High Court, Planning Court: HHJ Klein dismissed the challenge to the grant of planning permission: [2019] EWHC 1370 (Admin).