Mole Valley District Council v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government & Anor

Green Belt policy must be interpreted contextually as a coherent statement of planning policy, rather than as a statute. Development which is not inappropriate in the Green Belt is treated by national policy as causing no harm to openness or to the purposes of including land in the Green Belt. This applies generally, including to qualifying grey belt development under the 2024 National Planning Policy Framework.

A site may be deliverable without an existing planning permission, but the decision-maker must assess whether it is available, suitable and achievable with a realistic prospect of delivery within five years. At an adversarial planning hearing, parties should identify the material on which they rely. An inspector need not search lengthy, unrelated examination material where its relevance is not obvious.

Mole Valley District Council challenged, under sections 288 and 289 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, an inspector’s decision allowing appeals concerning the retrospective development of a traveller site in the Green Belt.

The inspector treated the site as grey belt land and the development as not inappropriate under the 2024 National Planning Policy Framework. He also concluded that the Council could not demonstrate a five-year supply of deliverable traveller pitches and granted planning permission.

The Council alleged errors concerning Green Belt openness, the meaning of deliverability under the Planning Policy for Traveller Sites, and the inspector’s failure to consider the Examining Inspector’s report on the Local Plan.

1. Outcome. Permission to seek statutory review and/or appeal was refused on all three grounds. The grounds were unarguable.
2. Green Belt policy. Planning policy must be interpreted objectively and in context, while recognising that the National Planning Policy Framework is a policy document and not a statutory text.
3. Following and applying Lee Valley [2016] EWCA Civ 404, development which is not inappropriate is not to be regarded as harmful to Green Belt openness or to the purposes of including land in the Green Belt. That principle is of general application and is not confined to agricultural or forestry buildings. The 2024 wording, including paragraph 153 and footnote 55, did not dismantle that distinction.
4. The inspector therefore did not err by concluding that the aim of preserving openness could not be compromised by development classified as not inappropriate.
5. Deliverability. Planning permission is not a necessary prerequisite to a site being deliverable, and delivery within five years need not be certain or probable. The relevant question is whether the site is available, suitable and achievable with a realistic prospect of delivery within five years. The inspector considered the evidence as a whole and was entitled to find it insufficient. His conclusion involved planning judgment and disclosed no error of law.
6. Examining Inspector’s report. In an adversarial planning appeal, parties are ordinarily responsible for placing relevant material before the inspector. Although exceptional circumstances may require further inquiry, the Examining Inspector’s report concerned the soundness of a Local Plan, different evidence and different periods, and was not shown to be obviously material. The inspector was not obliged to locate it independently or explain why his conclusions differed.

These were first-instance statutory review and appeal proceedings. The judgment records the inspector’s decision of 18 February 2025, which allowed the underlying planning and enforcement appeals; this court refused permission to proceed against that decision.