CAMILLA SWIRE (R on the application of) v CANTERBURY CITY COUNCIL

A planning permission is construed objectively, as a reasonable reader with knowledge of planning law and practice would understand it. Schematic parameter plans ordinarily establish controlling principles rather than precise, immutable boundaries. Whether detailed proposals conform to them may involve planning judgment and degree.

For a subsequent consent, further environmental impact assessment is needed where later details disclose significant environmental effects not previously anticipated and assessed. The adequacy of environmental information is primarily for the planning authority, reviewable on Wednesbury grounds. Under a multi-stage consent, habitats assessment may be completed before the implementing reserved-matters decision.

A planning condition is void for uncertainty only when it has no sensible or ascertainable meaning. Technical planning judgments and decisions about the scope of inquiry attract a demanding irrationality standard.

The claimant brought two judicial review claims concerning an outline permission for a substantial mixed-use development. JR1 challenged the council’s approval of a site-wide masterplan. It alleged inconsistency with approved parameter plans, failures under the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017 and the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017, and inadequate detail concerning sustainable drainage.

JR2 challenged non-material amendments approved under section 96A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Those amendments allowed approved initial earthworks to precede compliance with certain conditions and permitted reserved-matters and design-code applications to progress concurrently. The issues included certainty, the authority’s duty of inquiry, irrationality and whether the alteration to the design-code sequence was non-material.

1. Both judicial review claims were dismissed. The renewed application for permission on ground 4 of JR2 was refused.

2. The meaning of the outline permission was an objective question of law. It had to be read as a whole, in its planning-law context. The access parameter plan was diagrammatic. It established the principle of an east-west spine road connecting two broadly located access points, rather than fixing the road and junction to precisely scalable positions. Conditions governing the masterplan, design codes and reserved matters required conformity with the plans’ principles but allowed planning judgment and justified variation. The approved masterplan therefore remained within the permission: paras [30]–[64].

3. The masterplan approval was a subsequent consent under the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017. Regulation 9 required the council to decide whether the environmental information already available was adequate. The officer’s report, read fairly and in context, showed that sufficient information had been considered. The modest alteration to the western road alignment had not been shown to create significant effects which had escaped the earlier assessment. The EIA challenge failed: paras [65]–[91].

4. The habitats challenge also failed. Under a multi-stage permission, reserved-matters approval is the implementing decision. The Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 contain no requirement equivalent to the EIA regime’s objective of assessment at the earliest possible stage. The nutrient-neutrality issue could lawfully be addressed through an appropriate assessment before reserved matters were approved: paras [92]–[96].

5. Condition 8 required a strategic masterplan, not final drainage designs. Detailed questions concerning sustainable drainage and footpaths could be resolved through later approvals. The officer’s evaluative conclusion was not irrational: paras [97]–[100].

6. The expression “initial earthworks” was sufficiently certain because the works would be identified and controlled through approval under condition 10. A planning condition is void only where it has no sensible or ascertainable meaning. It need not define every detail at the moment of its creation: paras [101]–[107].

7. The council was not irrational in approving the amendments without first obtaining details of the earthworks. It retained control at the condition 10 stage and could then prevent works prejudicing the outstanding conditions. The nature and intensity of inquiry were for the decision-maker unless its approach was irrational: paras [108]–[119].

8. Allowing reserved-matters and design-code applications to overlap did not permit reserved matters to be approved before the design codes. Whether that procedural alteration was non-material was a planning judgment for the council, and no arguable irrationality was shown: paras [120]–[124].

This was a first-instance determination of JR1 and JR2. Swift J had granted permission for JR1 and for grounds 1–3 of JR2, but refused permission for ground 4 of JR2. The claimant renewed that application at the substantive hearing.

The judgment also records an earlier challenge to the original outline permission. Stuart-Smith J refused permission at a renewal hearing, and Hickinbottom LJ refused permission to appeal on 5 November 2019.