Stoke Mandeville Parish Council, R (on the application of) v Buckinghamshire Council

In reviewing a planning decision, the court must read an officers’ report fairly and with reasonable benevolence. It must ask whether the report materially misled the committee on a matter bearing on its decision. Planning policies require objective interpretation, but the application of broad policy language remains a matter of planning judgment.

The expression “existing” sports or recreational facilities does not impose a rigid requirement that the use be continuing or have ceased only recently. Under a policy protecting community facilities, a recent bid to preserve the existing use may be highly material, particularly where its viability has not been assessed. Advising the committee that such a bid was irrelevant materially misdirects the decision-maker.

Stoke Mandeville Parish Council sought judicial review of Buckinghamshire Council’s decision to grant planning permission for 100 houses on a former sports and social club site.

The challenge concerned the interpretation and application of Policies I2 and I3 of the Vale of Aylesbury Local Plan, paragraph 103 of the National Planning Policy Framework, and the adequacy of two officers’ reports. Permission was granted on Grounds One and Three. Ground Two was considered at a rolled-up hearing. The central issues were whether the committee had been materially misdirected about the meaning of an “existing” sports facility and whether it had been properly informed about a parish council bid to preserve the site for community use.

1. Ground One allowed. Officers’ reports must be read as a whole, with reasonable benevolence and without excessive legalism. The question is whether the report materially misled members on a matter bearing upon their decision, so that the decision might have been different without the defect. The approach in Mansell v Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council was applied.
2. The distinction between interpreting a planning policy and applying it was material. The meaning of broad policy language may involve planning judgment, but the court must still interpret the policy objectively. The advice in OR1 treated Policy I2 as inapplicable because the site had not been used since 2017 or 2018 and would not be simple to bring back into use. That imposed a rigid temporal and practical test which the policy did not bear. “Existing” did not require the use to be subsisting at the date of the application. The committee was therefore materially misdirected.
3. Ground Two rejected. The conclusion that the site was not an existing sports or recreational facility was not irrational in the relevant sense. It was open to the Council to consider the period of non-use, rather than the continuing appearance of the playing fields alone. Reading the officers’ report as a whole, the reference to mitigation did not disclose a serious logical or methodological error.
4. Ground Three allowed. Policy I3 required consideration of whether there was viable interest in preserving the community use. The parish council’s February 2024 bid was a materially different proposal from the 2017 proposal assessed by Savills. It included claimed funding for purchase and refurbishment, but had not been assessed. The committee was not told of the bid and was expressly advised that it was irrelevant to the planning decision. That advice was plainly wrong and materially misleading.
5. The planning permission decision was quashed and the application was ordered to be redetermined.