Borough Council of Calderdale v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government

When determining an application or appeal for advertisement consent, the decision-maker must address both amenity and public safety. This includes the safety of highway users where the statutory scheme identifies it as a required consideration.

Where the evidence and representations identify specific operational controls as necessary for highway safety, the decision-maker must decide whether those controls are required in addition to standard conditions. A decision letter must make that reasoning intelligible. It is not enough that conditions imposed for amenity may have some incidental highway-safety effect.

An inspector allowed an appeal against refusal of express consent for a digital advertisement and granted consent subject to standard conditions and two additional conditions concerning luminance and intermittent lighting.

The local planning authority challenged the decision under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. It alleged failure to consider highway safety conditions, inadequate reasons, and procedural unfairness. The central issue was whether the inspector had lawfully addressed the need for specific operational controls to protect highway users.

1. Grounds 1 and 2 succeeded. The decision to grant express consent was quashed.
2. Under regulations 3(1) and 3(2) of the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007, the decision-maker had to consider public safety, including the safety of persons using the highway. Section 79(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 applied that obligation to the inspector determining the appeal.
3. The parties’ evidence identified the need for controls concerning luminance, moving images, the frequency of changes and the speed of changes. The inspector therefore had to consider whether specific conditions were required in addition to the standard conditions in Schedule 2 to the 2007 Regulations. The decision letter addressed amenity but did not grapple with that separate highway-safety question.
4. The two additional conditions imposed by the inspector did not demonstrate that highway safety had been considered. Their practical effect arose from the inspector’s assessment of amenity. The standard condition prohibiting danger to highway users did not itself provide the specific controls identified by the parties.
5. The reasons were also legally inadequate. The decision letter did not reveal whether the inspector considered the additional conditions unnecessary or had failed to address the issue. That uncertainty substantially prejudiced the claimant.
6. Ground 3 failed. It was not unfair to decide the conditions issue without inviting further representations because the inspector had the parties’ material and the claimant had chosen not to provide further submissions.

The claim was a first-instance challenge under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to an inspector’s decision allowing an advertisement-consent appeal. The inspector’s decision was quashed.