Zins, R (On the Application Of) v East Suffolk Council & Ors

In a planning judicial review, an officer’s report must not materially mislead the committee on a matter bearing on its decision. The report should be read as a whole and with reasonable benevolence. It need not reproduce a consultee’s advice verbatim, provided it fairly communicates its substance and principal concerns. Planning officers may reach their own planning judgment and may disagree with a consultee, while accurately identifying the consultee’s position. The court will intervene only where a material defect could have affected the committee’s decision. Site visits, the committee discussion and access to supporting material may form part of the relevant context.

The claimant challenged East Suffolk Council’s conditional planning permission for a recreational lake and the relocation of outdoor activity structures at the Bawdsey Manor Estate. He alleged that the planning officer’s report and update sheet materially misrepresented the Environmental Health Officer’s concerns about noise and failed to explain what heritage benefits the permission would secure. The central issues were whether the committee had been materially misled on noise and heritage matters, and whether the permission unlawfully relied on benefits that were already secured, inadequately secured or dependent on external funding.

1. Ground 1 dismissed. Applying Mansell v Tonbridge & Malling BC [2017] EWCA Civ 1314, the question was whether, reading the report and update sheet fairly and as a whole, the committee had been materially misled on noise and the Environmental Health Officer’s advice. The documents did not need to reproduce every consultation response. They adequately conveyed the officer’s continuing concerns about the proposed activity, the location, the nature, frequency and duration of the noise, and the limitations of purely objective noise measurements.
2. The planning officer was entitled to disagree with the Environmental Health Officer on the overall planning judgment. The officer acknowledged the concerns and explained why, in her view, conditions and mitigation would make the proposal acceptable. The committee was entitled to make its own judgment, assisted by the report, update sheet, site visit, presentations and debate.
3. The circumstances were materially different from Obar Camden Limited v Camden LBC [2016] JPL 241. In that case the committee had not been properly informed of the relevant environmental health advice. Here, the substance of the advice was communicated, even if the summary could have been clearer.
4. Ground 2 dismissed. The report did not state that the lake would itself fund the coastal defence or Pulhamite cliff works. The relevant supporting material indicated that external funding would be required. Nor was there impermissible double counting. Condition 11 of the lake permission imposed more significant landscape and heritage requirements than the earlier permission, including submission and implementation requirements for the specified schemes. The committee was not materially misled about the benefits secured.
5. The claim for judicial review was dismissed.