Starbones Ltd v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government & Ors

On a statutory planning review, the court examines legality, not the merits or relative weight assigned to planning considerations. The decision-maker must identify and interpret relevant policy, consider material considerations, and comply with the statutory priority given to the development plan. The evaluation and weighing of those matters remain matters of planning judgment, challengeable only on conventional public-law grounds.

Reasons must enable an informed reader to understand the outcome and the conclusions on the principal important controversial issues. They may be brief, particularly where the disagreement concerns visual impact or design. A Secretary of State who departs from an inspector’s recommendation must explain the disagreement, but faces no heightened standard of reasons. Emerging-plan weight under paragraph 48 of the Framework is a matter of judgment, not policy interpretation.

The claimant sought under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to quash the Secretary of State’s decision dismissing appeals against refusal of planning permission and advertisement consent for a mixed-use tower at Chiswick Roundabout.

The Inspector recommended allowing the appeals, finding that extensive public benefits outweighed less than substantial harm to designated heritage assets. The Secretary of State disagreed, finding conflict with development-plan policies concerning tall buildings and heritage assets, and giving only moderate weight to housing, workspace and economic benefits. The claimant alleged failure to consider alternative development, inadequate reasons, and misapplication of paragraph 48 of the Framework to the emerging Draft Replacement London Plan.

1. Claim dismissed. The Secretary of State was the primary planning decision-maker. He was entitled to disagree with the Inspector and his advisers on design, scale, massing and visual impact, provided the decision was lawful and rational.
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 a material consideration or procedural impropriety, but it must not re-weigh planning considerations.
3. The Secretary of State had considered the Inspector’s analysis of the Citadel and other possible development, expressly agreeing that impacts had to be assessed in the context of the Council’s plans and the possibility of the Citadel being implemented. He was not required to determine whether an unappealed alternative scheme would itself overcome heritage objections.
4. The Secretary of State’s terse treatment of design and the alleged “legible hierarchy” was adequate. He addressed the proposal’s scale, massing, relationship with its surroundings and heritage impact. The term “legibility” did not identify a separate principal important controversial issue requiring express treatment.
5. The reasons were intelligible and adequate under the principles in South Buckinghamshire District Council v Porter (No 2) [2004] 1 WLR 1953. A reasons challenge requires genuine substantial prejudice, not forensic doubt. There is no heightened reasons standard merely because the Secretary of State departs from an Inspector, although the reasons must explain that disagreement.
6. The Secretary of State correctly directed himself by paragraph 48 of the Framework. His conclusion that the emerging plan carried limited weight, because examination was incomplete, objections remained unresolved and policies might change, was an evaluative planning judgment. It was not shown to be perverse or unlawful.

First-instance statutory review. The claim under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 was dismissed.