Holder v Gedling Borough Council & Ors
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
- LORD JUSTICE MAURICE KAY
- LORD JUSTICE PATTEN
- SIR STANLEY BURNTON
Areas of Law
- Administrative Law
- Environmental Law
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
Gedling Borough Council granted planning permission to erect a 66-meter wind turbine within Nottingham Green Belt, facing substantial objection. Mr. Holder sought judicial review, dismissed initially but later granted permission to appeal by Sullivan LJ. The Court of Appeal found the planning officer misadvised on material considerations, vitiating the Planning Committee's decision. The planning permission was quashed and remitted for reconsideration by the Council.
Judgment
Lord Justice Maurice Kay:
This appeal concerns planning permission for the erection within the Nottingham Green Belt of a wind turbine with a maximum ground to tip height of 66 metres. Gedling Borough Council (the Council) granted permission on 3 November 2011. The site is on farmland at Woodborough Park, Forwood Lane, Woodborough. Planning Policy Guidance Note (PPG2) provides:
“3.1 The general policies controlling development in the countryside apply with equal force in Green Belts but there is, in addition, a general presumption against inappropriate development within them. Such developments should not be approved, except in very special circumstances… ”
In the present case, permission was granted in the face of substantial objection. The Planning Committee approved the application by ten votes to seven.
Mr Holder is a member of Woodborough and Calverton Against Turbines (WACAT). He made an application for judicial review of the planning permission but the application was dismissed by Kenneth Parker J (the Judge) on 12 June 2013: [2013] EWHC 1611 (Admin) . Permission to appeal to this court was granted by Sullivan LJ at an oral renewal hearing on 4 December 2013: [2013] EWCA Civ 1719 . He pertinently observed that the delays in this case had been lamentable; they had been procedural and systemic rather than a result of personal culpability on the part of the litigants. It is to be hoped that the new fast-track procedure for planning cases in the Administrative Court will make such delays a thing of the past. It is an additional feature of this case that, notwithstanding the spectre of litigation uncertainty, the land owners, Mr and Mrs Charles-Jones, have acquired and erected the contentious wind turbine since the judgment in the Administrative Court, notwithstanding the proceedings in this Court.
Factual background
I gratefully take the following account from the judgment below:
“4. Woodborough Park is a farm near the village of Woodborough in Nottinghamshire. The land is open countryside and is within the Nottingham Green Belt.
5. Planning permission for the erection of two 11kW wind turbines was granted on 19 August 2010 (reference 2010/0244). These turbines were to have 18 metre high masts with 13 metre diameter rotors. On 6 June 2011 the Council granted planning permission for the erection of two ground mounted photovoltaic panel arrays (totalling 9.9kW) as appropriate development in the Green Belt.
6. On 22 July 2010 Segen