Lullington Solar Park Ltd v Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities & Anor

In a statutory planning challenge, the court will respect an inspector’s specialist planning judgment and read the decision letter fairly and as a whole. An applicant need not investigate every possible alternative site or prove that no alternative exists. However, an assessment of alternative agricultural land may be inadequate where it relies only on broad mapping and contains no meaningful investigation of soil quality outside the application site. The availability of alternative sites is a material consideration only where the circumstances make it obviously material, including where planning policy or other planning harm is engaged. An inspector may use material found through a hyperlink in a party’s evidence, provided the decision fairly explains its relevance. The challenge failed because the inspector’s reasoning was adequately clear and not irrational.

The claimant applied under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to challenge an inspector’s dismissal of its section 78 appeal. The appeal concerned refusal of planning permission for a 49.9MW solar farm on approximately 70 hectares of land in South Derbyshire, nearly half of which was best and most versatile agricultural land.

The inspector accepted substantial renewable-energy and other benefits but concluded that the loss of best and most versatile land conflicted with planning policy. The claimant challenged the inspector’s treatment of its site-selection assessment and his reference to another proposed solar farm at Oaklands Farm.

1. The claim was dismissed. The inspector was entitled to conclude that the proposed loss of best and most versatile agricultural land outweighed the benefits of the solar farm and conflicted with the development plan and national policy.
2. Planning inspectors’ expertise must be respected. Decision letters are read benevolently and as a whole, in a reasonably flexible way and without excessive legalism. They must enable the reader to understand the reasons for the decision and the conclusions on the principal controversial issues: Hopkins Homes Ltd v Secretary of State [2017] 1 WLR 1865; St Modwen Developments Ltd v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government [2018] PTSR 746.
3. The meaning of planning policy is a question of law, but its application and the weight given to material considerations are matters of planning judgment. Intervention is justified only for irrationality or perversity: Tesco Stores Ltd v Secretary of State for the Environment [1995] 1 WLR 759. The inspector’s conclusion that the claimant’s assessment was not sufficiently robust was rational. The claimant had not investigated soil quality outside the appeal site and had assumed that other grade 3 land would contain a similar proportion of best and most versatile land, despite authoritative mapping indicating a possible range of 20–60 per cent.
4. An applicant need not investigate every possible location or demonstrate that no possible alternative exists. That does not prevent an inspector finding an assessment inadequate where it contains no meaningful investigation of other potential sites. The availability of alternatives is ordinarily irrelevant absent planning conflict or other harm, but may become material in exceptional circumstances: R (Mount Cook Land Ltd) v Westminster City Council [2017] PTSR 116; R (Save Stonehenge World Heritage Site Ltd) v Secretary of State for Transport [2021] EWHC 2161 (Admin).
5. At a hearing, the inspector has an enhanced inquisitorial duty because witnesses are not cross-examined: Dyason v Secretary of State for the Environment (1998) 75 P&CR 506. That duty did not require further inquiry into a briefly and inadequately supported predictive agricultural-land map.
6. The inspector’s reference to Oaklands Farm was permissible. It was used as an example of the weakness in the claimant’s assessment, not as a concluded alternative site. No separate finding on Oaklands Farm’s availability was required.
7. The court did not need to decide the alternative submission under Simplex (GE) Holdings Ltd v SSE (1989) 57 P & CR 306, but indicated that it would have accepted that relief could have been refused because the result was highly unlikely to differ.

This was a first-instance statutory review in the Planning Court. The challenged decision was an inspector’s dismissal of the claimant’s section 78 planning appeal against the local planning authority’s refusal of permission.