Save North St Albans Green Belt (R on the application of) & Ors. v St Albans City and District Council

In a planning judicial review, the court reviews legality rather than planning merits. Previous decisions concerning the same or similar development are material considerations. A decision-maker may depart from them, but must have regard to consistency and give adequate reasons for doing so.

A planning officer’s report is read fairly and as a whole. The court intervenes only where it materially misleads the committee on an issue capable of affecting the decision. For an outline application, the committee need only be satisfied that an acceptable scheme within the approved parameters could come forward at the reserved matters stage. Very special circumstances exist where Green Belt harm and other harm are clearly outweighed by other considerations.

The claimants sought judicial review of the Council’s decision to grant outline planning permission for up to 150 dwellings on Green Belt land at Sewell Park, St Albans. The site had been the subject of earlier refused applications and dismissed appeals, including proposals for 85 and 116 dwellings.

The challenge alleged that the planning officer’s report materially misled the Planning Referrals Committee about the planning history and the differences between the proposals; failed to give adequate reasons for departing from earlier decisions; and relied on material based on a 132-dwelling illustrative scheme when the application was for up to 150 dwellings. The central issues were whether the report contained material legal or factual defects and whether the Council had sufficient information to determine the outline application.

1. Claim dismissed. The Council’s decision was not shown to contain a public law error. The court would not revisit the officer’s or committee’s planning judgment or the weight given to competing considerations.
2. Previous decisions concerning the same or similar development in the same or similar location were material considerations. The decision-maker had to take them into account and give reasons for departing from them, but remained entitled to exercise its own planning judgment. The report correctly identified the planning history, the applicable Green Belt policy and the relevant changes since 2015, including worsening housing circumstances, the withdrawal of the emerging Local Plan, changes in ministerial guidance and the different parameters of the proposal.
3. The report was not materially misleading. Although it should preferably have reminded members that the Appeal B and 2014 proposals were smaller, that information appeared elsewhere in the report and the difference would have been apparent. The assessment that the green corridor and retained north-eastern open space reduced the harm from sprawl and encroachment was a planning judgment which could not be challenged merely because another assessment was possible.
4. The Council was not under a statutory duty to give reasons for granting permission. Nor, on the facts, did the exceptional common-law duty identified in R (CPRE Kent) v Dover DC arise, since the members adopted the officer’s recommendation. In any event, the detailed report intelligibly explained the principal controversial issues and why the benefits clearly outweighed Green Belt and other harm.
5. For an outline application with all matters reserved except access, the committee needed only to be satisfied that an acceptable scheme for up to 150 dwellings could come forward within the fixed site boundary and conditioned parameter plans. The use of material illustrating 132 dwellings, and the report’s reference to a density of 40 dwellings per hectare based on that material, did not make the information inadequate. The claimants had not shown that no reasonable planning authority could regard the available information as sufficient.