Braintree District Council v Secretary of State for Housing Communities and Local Government

Development-plan policies stating that development in the countryside will be strictly controlled to uses appropriate to the countryside do not necessarily create an exhaustive list of permitted uses. Unless the policy language clearly imposes such a limit, the decision-maker must exercise planning judgment in the particular circumstances, reading the policies together and in their wider context. A gypsy and traveller site may therefore be appropriate in the countryside where it satisfies the specific locational criteria and causes no unacceptable environmental harm. Planning decisions must give intelligible and adequate reasons on the principal important controversial issues, but the decision letter is read as a whole. A partial costs order may be clarified by the reasons in the decision letter and need not be wholly self-contained.

An inspector allowed an enforcement appeal concerning a residential caravan site occupied by a gypsy family, granted planning permission under section 177(5) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, quashed the enforcement notice and made a partial award of costs against the local planning authority.

The local planning authority challenged the enforcement appeal decision under sections 288 and 289 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. It alleged that the inspector had misinterpreted policies RLP2 and CS5 and had failed to give adequate reasons. It also challenged the costs order under section 250(5) of the Local Government Act 1972. The central issues were whether the policies excluded the proposed countryside use and whether the costs order was legally defective.

1. The challenges were dismissed. Both the application under section 288 and the appeal under section 289 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 failed.
2. Development-plan policies must be interpreted objectively, by reference to their language and proper context, but they are policy statements rather than statutory or contractual texts. Their application may require planning judgment: Tesco Stores Ltd v Dundee City Council [2012] UKSC 13; Hopkins Homes Ltd v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government [2017] UKSC 37.
3. Policies RLP2 and CS5 did not define an exclusive class of uses appropriate to the countryside. Paragraphs 4.24 and 6.22 to 6.24 stated broad objectives and indicated relevant considerations, but did not exclude other uses or remove the need for planning judgment. Read with policy CS3, the development plan contemplated that gypsy and traveller sites could be located outside development boundaries where the relevant criteria were satisfied.
4. The inspector had correctly considered the site against policy CS3 and the policies protecting character and appearance. Her conclusion that the development accorded with the development plan read as a whole was therefore lawful. The reasons were sufficient when the decision letter was read as a whole. Reasons need address the principal important controversial issues and enable the reader to understand the decision, but need not mention every material consideration: South Bucks DC v Porter (No 2) [2004] 1 WLR 1953.
5. Section 250(5) of the Local Government Act 1972 did not require the formal costs order to be entirely self-contained. Any uncertainty could be resolved by reading it with the reasons. Those reasons sufficiently identified the costs arising from the authority’s failure to investigate the interested party’s status, circumstances and the needs of children at the site.

Not stated in the judgment. The decision was a first-instance determination of statutory challenges to an inspector’s decisions.