Lochailort Kentford Limited v West Suffolk Council & Anor

Where a consideration is not prescribed by statute, failure to take it into account is unlawful only if it was so obviously material that omission was irrational. An entry in Part 1 of the Town and Country Planning (Brownfield Land Register) Regulations 2017 indicates residential suitability, but does not itself allocate land or establish that it is preferable to other sites. It may therefore coexist with a local plan decision not to allocate a larger site, particularly where the plan compares whole sites. Even if an error occurred, relief may be refused where the decision-makers would necessarily have reached the same outcome.

Lochailort Kentford Limited v West Suffolk Council & Anor was a statutory review challenge to West Suffolk Council’s adoption of its Local Plan. The claimant owned a former animal health site, part of which was added to Part 1 of the Brownfield Land Register after the Local Plan examination hearings had closed. It argued that the entry showed the Council considered the site suitable for housing, in conflict with the reasons for not allocating it, and that the Council and Inspectors had failed to address that change. The issues were whether the entry was a material consideration, whether the Council’s positions were irrationally inconsistent, and whether an explanation was required.

1. Permission for judicial review was granted, but the claim was dismissed.

2. For a consideration not prescribed by statute, failure to take it into account is unlawful only where it was “so obviously material” that it was irrational to omit it. The court applied that high threshold, stated in R (Friends of the Earth Ltd) v Secretary of State for Transport [2020] UKSC 52, to the later register entry.

3. The Council’s reason for omitting the site from the Local Plan was not that it was incapable of residential development. The Omission Sites Report concluded that other sites in Type A villages were more suitable and achievable. The Part 1 entry related only to the existing buildings and curtilages, a small part of the larger promoted site. It did not amount to a planning judgment that the site should be preferred or allocated, or address the comparative merits of the whole site.

4. The register entry did not undermine the remaining reasons for omission. The listed-building concern related to further development; the Council had not been shown to have assessed the employment-safeguarding policy when making the register entry; and the local plan methodology assessed whole sites. Part 2 of the Register, unlike Part 1, involves a decision to allocate land and carries permission in principle. The Inspectors’ post-hearing procedure also did not require them to receive material that was not essential to their conclusions. Accordingly, there was no irrational failure to consider the entry, no inconsistent position, and no failure to explain such an inconsistency. The related settlement-boundary challenge also failed because the site had not been allocated.

5. In any event, even if there had been an error, relief would have been refused because the Inspectors and Council would necessarily have reached the same conclusions. The Inspectors had considered whether greater weight should be given to previously developed land and whether only part of a site should be allocated. The court applied the principle in Simplex GE Holdings Ltd v Secretary of State for the Environment [1989] 57 P&CR 306.

The claim proceeded as a rolled-up hearing under an order of Mould J dated 8 May 2026.