Wedgewood v City of York Council

A high-level planning policy establishing the general extent of a Green Belt does not, without more, define every parcel within that area as Green Belt land. Where detailed boundaries have not been adopted, the local planning authority must apply the strategic policy rationally. It may consider relevant draft and emerging plans, their consistency with national policy, and the site-specific characteristics of the land. The resulting classification is a planning judgment for the authority, subject to judicial review on orthodox grounds. Planning policies must be interpreted objectively by the court, but their application is for the decision maker. A legitimate expectation requires a clear, unambiguous and unqualified promise or a sufficiently regular practice.

The claimant challenged the Council’s grant of planning permission for extensions and additional parking at a neurological rehabilitation centre near York. Permission to pursue three grounds was granted: that the site should have been treated as Green Belt, that the claimant had a legitimate expectation that it would be so treated, and that the Council failed to give reasons for departing from the development plan. The Council accepted that the claim would succeed if the site was legally required to be treated as Green Belt. The central issue was whether the retained strategic planning policies established the detailed Green Belt status of the site.

1. Claim dismissed. The Council’s decision was not susceptible to challenge.
2. Planning policies are not construed as statutory provisions. Their proper interpretation is a question of law for the court, while their application is for the planning authority. The court intervenes only where the officer’s report significantly misleads the decision maker or the planning judgment is legally irrational. The principles stated in Bloor Homes East Midlands Ltd v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and Another [2014] EWHC 754 (Admin) were adopted, subject to one qualification concerning the interpretation of policy.
3. The retained policies of the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Spatial Strategy established, as a matter of high-level policy, that a Green Belt existed in principle around York. They did not define the detailed inner or outer boundaries, or provide that every parcel within the illustrated general extent was Green Belt land.
4. In the absence of an adopted local plan defining the boundaries, the Council was required to apply the strategic policy rationally. It could consider the 2005 draft local plan, the emerging local plan in accordance with paragraph 48 of the NPPF, and site-specific features. The officer’s report did so. Its conclusion that the site formed part of the urban area and was not to be treated as Green Belt involved a rational and permissible planning judgment.
5. The Council therefore had not departed from an applicable development plan and was under no separate obligation to give reasons for such a departure.
6. The legitimate-expectation ground also failed. The materials disclosed no express promise or regular practice amounting to a promise that all land within the RSS’s general extent would be treated as Green Belt. No promise was clear, unambiguous and devoid of relevant qualification.

The judgment determined a first-instance planning judicial review claim. Permission had been granted to pursue three grounds; the claim failed on all grounds.