Abbotskerswell Parish Council v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities & Ors

A planning decision under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 is reviewed on ordinary judicial review principles. The court must not substitute its planning judgment for that of the decision-maker.

For outline permission requiring environmental assessment, the decision-maker may rely on information reasonably required at that stage and leave further detail to reserved matters, provided that the permission and its conditions define effective parameters. The adequacy of an environmental statement and the scientific conclusions of an appropriate assessment are ordinarily reviewed on Wednesbury grounds.

Under regulation 70(3) of the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017, conditions and limitations may be taken into account when deciding whether outline permission can safely be granted.

The claimant, a parish council, sought statutory review of the Secretary of State’s decision to allow an appeal and grant outline planning permission for a major mixed-use development at Wolborough Barton. The development included about 1,210 dwellings, employment space, a school and associated infrastructure.

The challenge concerned the adequacy of environmental information about greenhouse-gas emissions and greater horseshoe bats, the assessment of effects on the South Hams Special Area of Conservation, and whether the Secretary of State could rely on conditions and reserved matters under regulation 70(3) of the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017.

1. Outcome. The claim was dismissed. The Secretary of State had not erred in law, acted irrationally, or failed to comply with the environmental assessment and habitats requirements.
2. The adequacy of the environmental statement was a matter for the Secretary of State’s judgment, subject to Wednesbury review. There was no separate legal category of unlawfulness based on a supposed “patent defect”. The environmental information was sufficient to inform the decision, including because climate-change matters had been considered through the Local Plan, its sustainability appraisal and strategic environmental assessment, together with transport, air quality, flood-risk and energy material.
3. Environmental effects in a multi-stage consent procedure should normally be identified and assessed at the outline stage. Nevertheless, further details and further assessment may be addressed at reserved matters where the outline permission and its conditions establish clear parameters. The Secretary of State was entitled to conclude that the available bat surveys, the GHB Mitigation Plan, the illustrative masterplan and the proposed conditions provided a sufficient basis for the outline decision.
4. The appropriate assessment required a high standard of investigation and sufficient certainty to dispel reasonable scientific doubt, but the evaluative conclusion remained one for the competent authority and was reviewable on Wednesbury grounds. The Secretary of State was entitled to take account of secured mitigation, including habitat corridors, lighting controls and ecological conditions, and to give weight to Natural England’s view.
5. Regulation 70(3) expressly permits conditions and limitations to contribute to the conclusion that no development likely adversely to affect the integrity of a European site could proceed under an outline permission. It did not require every detail affecting site integrity to be resolved at outline stage. The Dutch Nitrogen authorities did not establish a contrary rule.
6. The planning conditions defined parameters for the masterplan, ecological mitigation, lighting, construction and protection of greater horseshoe bat corridors. The decision-maker’s judgments were rational and the claim was dismissed.

The judgment was a first-instance statutory review under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Permission to bring the claim had previously been granted on specified grounds at an oral renewal hearing.