Bellway Homes Limited v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government

Planning policy should be interpreted straightforwardly and without importing the linguistic rigour used for statutes or contracts. A policy requiring an unallocated site to be “well-related” to a settlement does not create a rigid preliminary gateway that must be decided in isolation from subsequent criteria. The assessment may consider physical, visual and functional relationships, including accessibility and sustainable transport, and need not follow a prescribed sequence. The court reviews the legal meaning of policy, but the application of that policy and the weight given to relevant considerations remain matters for the planning decision-maker. An inspector’s decision letter should be read flexibly and as a whole. Where an inspector’s sustainable-location finding is unchallenged and independently establishes conflict with the development plan, a related complaint about the structure of the policy assessment will not justify quashing the decision.

Bellway Homes challenged under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 an inspector’s decision dismissing its section 78 appeal against refusal of permission for 148 dwellings at Great Lumley, County Durham.

The inspector accepted that the proposal would not cause material unacceptable landscape or visual harm. He nevertheless found that the site was not a sustainable location, was not well-related to Great Lumley, conflicted with Policy 6 of the County Durham Plan 2020 and related policies, and that the identified harm was not outweighed by the benefits.

Permission was granted only on the ground alleging misconstruction of Policy 6. The central issue was whether Policy 6 required a separate preliminary determination of whether the site was well-related to the settlement before considering criteria (a) to (j).

1. Claim dismissed. The inspector had adopted a lawful approach to Policy 6 of the County Durham Plan 2020.
2. Policy 6 did not establish a rigid two-stage process. The words “well-related to a settlement” had to be assessed in context, together with the requirement that the proposal accord with relevant development plan policies and criteria (a) to (j). The policy did not require the decision-maker to consider the gateway question first, or to exclude the criteria from that assessment.
3. The judgment as to whether a site was well-related could be informed by its physical and visual relationship with the settlement, but also by its functional relationship and other relevant matters. Criterion (f), requiring good access by sustainable modes of transport to relevant services and facilities, concerned one way in which a site related to the settlement. It did not concern visual relationship alone.
4. The supporting text at paragraph 4.110 identified physical and visual relationship as a key consideration, but did not make it exclusive or prescribe the order of decision-making. As supporting text, it could not trump the policy: R (Cherkley Campaign Ltd) v Mole Valley DC v Longshot Cherkley Court Ltd [2014] EWCA Civ 567 at [16].
5. The inspector had considered walking distances, bus frequency and destinations, and the opportunity to substitute walking or public transport for private-car use. His conclusions under Policy 6 criterion (f), Policy 21 and the sustainable-location issue were compendious but intelligible. The court declined to dissect the decision letter hypercritically.
6. Because the rationality challenge to the sustainable-location finding had not been permitted and that finding established fundamental conflict with the development plan, the inspector was entitled to dismiss the appeal notwithstanding the identified benefits.

This was a first-instance statutory challenge under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The challenged decision was an inspector’s decision dated 16 May 2024 dismissing the claimant’s section 78 appeal. Permission was granted only on Ground 1; permission on Grounds 2 to 4 was refused.