STANDARD LIFE ASSURANCE LIMITED v SECRETARY OF STATE FOR LEVELLING-UP, HOUSING AND COMMUNITIES & Ors

A planning decision must be read fairly and as a whole. An inspector need address the principal important controversial issues, but need not answer every argument or possible contingency. The court must not substitute its planning judgment for that of the inspector.

Where a private-law right of access is relevant to the planning assessment, the inspector may take it into account, provided it is not treated as conclusively determining planning acceptability. Expectations that practical mitigation or cooperation will occur may be expressed without those measures being treated as planning preconditions. A development-plan allocation for housing is a relevant factor in assessing the agent of change principle, but is not necessarily dispositive.

The claimant, owner of an industrial estate adjoining a former garage site, challenged under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 an inspector’s decision allowing an appeal under section 78 and granting conditional outline planning permission.

The proposed development included housing, student accommodation and access through the claimant’s estate. The claimant alleged irrationality, misinterpretation of a deed granting access, failure to address the alleged unenforceability of a planning condition after ten years’ breach, and misapplication of the National Planning Policy Framework’s agent-of-change principle.

The central issue was whether the inspector’s decision disclosed an error of law, irrationality, inadequate reasoning or procedural unfairness.

1. Claim dismissed. The inspector’s decision, read fairly and as a whole, disclosed no error of law, irrationality, inadequate reasoning or procedural unfairness.
2. The inspector had not found that new electronic gates, an automatic number-plate recognition system or a private agreement were necessary to make the development acceptable in planning terms. He had identified such measures as potentially needed for efficient operation of access for nine parking spaces, and was entitled to expect that practical arrangements might be agreed. The inspector was not relying on the delivery or efficacy of those measures as a planning precondition.
3. The 1994 deed of grant expressly contemplated access by construction traffic. The inspector was entitled to treat that as a relevant consideration, while also considering the potential nature, duration and management of any interference. He did not treat the deed as making any resulting planning harm automatically acceptable or as overriding the planning assessment.
4. The inspector was entitled to rely on condition 6 of the 1983 planning permission. The claimant had not clearly articulated before or during the inquiry a case that the condition was unenforceable because of a continuous breach lasting ten years, nor produced sufficiently clear evidence to make that a principal important controversial issue requiring detailed reasons. The bare description of uses as sui generis did not establish the lawful use of the estate or invalidate the condition.
5. The housing allocation in Policy SB15 was a relevant contextual factor but was not treated as dispositive of the agent-of-change issue. The inspector’s separate reliance on condition 6 and the imposition of sound-insulation requirements demonstrated that he had not treated the allocation as eliminating all possible conflict between existing industrial and proposed residential uses.
6. The informal round-table procedure did not render the decision unlawful. Even assuming the procedural requirements relied on from Dyason and Croydon applied, the inspector had conscientiously engaged with the claimant’s case and evidence. He was not required to resolve every possible objection or hypothetical scenario.

This was a first-instance judicial review-style statutory challenge under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Permission was initially refused on the papers on 5 August 2021, but granted on renewal on 7 October 2021. The claim was then dismissed by the High Court (Planning Court).