Paul Knights, R (on the application of) v South Norfolk District Council

A planning authority must take into account considerations which the governing statute or applicable policy requires it to consider. It must also consider a matter which is so obviously material on the facts that it would be irrational to omit it. An officer’s report need not mention every document expressly, but it must not materially mislead the decision-maker when read fairly and benevolently as a whole. The court may examine whether there was sufficient evidence for the planning judgment, while leaving the planning merits to the decision-maker. Where a material evidential omission affects the factual foundation of that judgment, the omission is an error of law. In assessing whether relief should be withheld, the court must focus on the effect of the error on the decision-making process, without predicting the authority’s hypothetical decision or reviewing the planning merits.

The claimant sought judicial review of South Norfolk District Council’s delegated decision dated 22 November 2024 granting planning permission for a self-build dwelling in Gillingham, Norfolk. Permission to proceed was granted only on the ground that the officer’s report failed to take into account material considerations concerning daylight, overshadowing, measurements and the positioning of the proposed dwelling. The claimant relied on an expert report and a rebuttal report responding to the applicants’ criticisms. The central issue was whether the report fairly demonstrated that the relevant evidence had been considered, particularly where the officer’s planning judgment depended on the distance between the proposed dwelling and the boundary.

1. Claim allowed. The planning permission was quashed.
2. Under Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s 70(2)(a), the authority had to have regard to the development plan so far as material. Policy DM3.13 was treated by the officer as material and required consideration of residential amenity, including loss of daylight and overshadowing. Alternatively, the impact on the claimant’s property was obviously material on the facts.
3. The officer’s report had to be read as a whole and with a reasonable degree of benevolence. Although it did not expressly refer to the rebuttal report, express reference to that document was not required. The report did, however, have to address the material evidence underpinning the planning judgment.
4. The issue concerned the evidential stage of planning judgment identified in Grafton Group: whether sufficient factual material existed upon which the decision-maker could form a planning conclusion. The officer’s conclusion that overshadowing would not be significant depended on the proposed dwelling’s position in the survey model and its distance from the boundary.
5. The rebuttal report directly addressed those matters, stating that the survey accounted for the relevant distances and accurately positioned the proposed dwelling using professional survey data. Those matters were therefore material to the factual foundation of the officer’s judgment. The report failed to take them into account. That was an error of law.
6. Under Senior Courts Act 1981, s 31(2A), the court had to assess the significance of the error in the actual decision-making process. It was not permissible to enter the forbidden territory of reviewing the planning merits or to predict what the authority would have decided had it considered the omitted material. It was not highly likely that the outcome would have been substantially the same.

This was a first-instance judicial review claim. The judgment records that HH Judge Jarman KC extended time but refused permission, and that on oral renewal Tim Smith granted permission on Ground 1 only. The High Court allowed the claim and quashed the planning permission.