Advearse, R (on the application of) v Dorset Council & Ors

A planning authority must address a policy systematically where the policy requires a particular assessment. An officer’s report must identify the nature and extent of heritage harm and explain how that harm is weighed against the proposal’s public benefits. It must not assume that reserved matters will later eliminate or mitigate the harm. Reports are read in the round, but councillors should not be required to reconstruct the relevant reasoning from disconnected passages. A failure to explain the required balancing exercise may justify a finding of legal error, although relief must be refused where it is highly likely that the outcome would have been substantially the same. Policies governing major development in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty may be applied progressively at successive planning stages. Reliance on an earlier plan examination is permissible where circumstances have not materially changed.

Dorset Council granted Hallam Land Management Ltd outline planning permission for a major mixed-use development at Vearse Farm, within the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and near the Bridport Conservation Area and the Grade II listed Toll House. Residents sought judicial review, alleging that the Council had failed to apply the heritage policies in Part 12 of the National Planning Policy Framework 2012, comply with statutory duties concerning listed buildings and conservation areas, take account of the later wording of paragraph 172 of the National Planning Policy Framework 2019, and assess the major-development policy properly.

The central issues were whether the officer’s report adequately addressed less than substantial heritage harm and the necessary public-benefits balance, whether the later NPPF wording effected a material policy change, and whether the report addressed the policy’s mandatory considerations.

1. Ground One succeeded, but no relief was granted. The officer’s report did not coherently apply Part 12 of the National Planning Policy Framework 2012 to the Bridport Conservation Area or the Toll House. It did not clearly identify the extent of harm and then weigh that harm against the public benefits of the development. Instead, it moved between acknowledging effects, speculating about future reserved matters, and suggesting that harm might be avoided or minimised.
2. In an outline application, councillors must decide the application on the information before them without assuming that future decisions on layout, landscaping, scale or appearance will produce a particular result. The paragraph 134 balance had to be struck while treating those matters as future unknowns. The balance would arise again when reserved matters were determined.
3. Officer’s reports are read as common-sense documents in the round, and the court will not nit-pick. Those principles do not require councillors to piece together disconnected passages to construct reasoning absent from the part of the report addressing the relevant asset. The report must meet basic standards of coherent public administration.
4. The duty in section 72(1) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 did not arise because the proposed development was on land adjacent to, rather than within, the conservation area. In any event, that issue did not affect the outcome because the NPPF policy required the material assessment. The section 66(1) duty concerning the Toll House was sufficiently discharged only if the decision was consistent with the NPPF approach, which it was not.
5. Section 31(2A) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 required relief to be refused. It was highly likely that, if the report had clearly set out and applied Part 12, the councillors would have reached the same conclusion. The information needed for the balance was already available, and the public benefits outweighed the less than substantial harm.
6. Grounds Two and Three failed. The additional words in paragraph 172 of the National Planning Policy Framework 2019 did not materially change the policy relevant to this development. The existing major-development policy already embodied a principle of limited development. The Council could rely on the Inspector’s earlier findings on need and alternatives because no material change of circumstances had been shown. The report sufficiently addressed the Dorset AONB Team’s substantive concerns, despite an omission which made its summary less clear.
7. The major-development policy would often need to be applied progressively. At reserved-matters stage, the assessment of how detrimental effects could be moderated would require more detailed and specific consideration.