Mudford Parish Council v Somerset Council

Planning allocation policies must be interpreted by the court in their planning context and by reference to the development plan read as a whole. An allocation requiring employment land does not necessarily require speculative employment buildings or occupied businesses. By contrast, an allocation requiring a neighbourhood centre ordinarily requires the completed centre to be provided as part of the integrated development, although the timing and means of delivery remain matters of planning judgment. A decision-maker need not be certain that every element will be delivered. It must reach a rational judgment on the prospects of delivery and may use conditions, planning obligations and reserved-matters controls to secure appropriate phasing.

Somerset Council granted outline permission for a sustainable urban extension including up to 765 dwellings, employment land and a neighbourhood centre. Policy YV2 of the South Somerset Local Plan 2006–2028 stated that the extension should provide those elements. The permission secured access to the employment land and marketing obligations for the employment land and neighbourhood centre, but did not require their construction by specified housing triggers.

Mudford Parish Council sought judicial review, arguing that the Council had unlawfully interpreted Policy YV2 as permitting the residential development without delivery of the non-residential elements. The central issues were the meaning of “should provide”, the distinction between policy interpretation and application, and whether members had received legally accurate advice.

1. The claim was dismissed in respect of both the planning permission and the related engineering-works permission.
2. Planning policies are questions of law for the court to interpret, but they must be read in their planning context, having regard to their purpose and the development plan as a whole. The allocation function of Policy YV2 was material.
3. As regards employment land, “should provide approximately 2.58 hectares of land for economic development” required provision of land allocated for employment use. It did not require speculative construction of employment buildings or the creation of occupied businesses. The permission granted the allocated employment use and highway access, and officers had correctly interpreted the policy.
4. The supporting text explained the purpose and sustainability expectations of the allocation but did not enlarge the express requirement for employment land. Employment use could exist with or without built development, having regard to section 55(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.
5. As regards the neighbourhood centre, “should provide” referred to built development. In the context of an integrated sustainable urban extension, provision meant that the centre should be constructed and in use by or before completion of the residential development it was intended to serve. Whether the proposal, conditions and section 106 obligations gave sufficient prospects of that result was a matter of planning judgment.
6. The decision-maker did not need certainty of delivery. Officers were entitled to take a positive view of the prospects of delivery through marketing provisions and were not required to impose a construction trigger linked to occupation of dwellings. The use of conditions, legal agreements and reserved matters to control sequencing was also a matter for rational planning judgment.
7. Condition 3 retained control over phasing. Properly interpreted in context, it gave the Council control over the number and sequencing of development phases. The court rejected the submission that the condition had to be read through the officer report.
8. The court disregarded post-decision witness statements which contained opinion, argument and retrospective explanation. In Planning Court challenges, material beyond contemporary documents is generally admissible only where it has specific relevance to a legal issue, such as procedural error, fairness or proportionality. The costs of and occasioned by the statements were disallowed.