Midcounties Co-Operative Ltd, R (on the application of) v Forest of Dean District Council & Anor
2014
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
UK
CORAM
- MR JUSTICE HICKINBOTTOM
Areas of Law
- Administrative Law
- Environmental Law
- Civil Procedure
2014
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
UK
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The Co-op challenged the Council’s decision to grant planning permission to Trilogy for an out-of-town Asda store, arguing that it failed to mitigate harm to the town center and repeated previous errors. The court found in favor of the Co-op, identifying failures in the Committee's consideration of material factors, breaches of the CIL Regulations, and misinterpretation of the NPPF, and ultimately quashed the planning permission.
Judgment
Mr Justice Hickinbottom :
Introduction
The Claimant (“the Co-op”) owns and operates a supermarket in Cinderford town centre. In this claim, it seeks to quash the decision of the Defendant planning authority (“the Council”) to grant outline planning permission to the Interested Party developer (“Trilogy”) for a Class A1 retail store of up to 4,645 sq m gross floor space together with ancillary works on land at Steam Mills Road, Cinderford (“the Site”). The Site is out-of-town. The new store is to be operated by Asda Stores Limited (“Asda”).
Planning permission was granted on 2 January 2014, following a resolution of the Council’s Planning Committee on 8 October 2013 to approve Trilogy’s application. That was a redetermination of the application, following the decision of Stewart J on 4 July 2013 to quash the Council’s earlier grant of permission on 29 March 2012 ( Midcounties Co-operative Limited v Forest of Dean District Council [2013] EWHC 1908 (Admin) ).
In this claim, in short, the Co-op contends that, in making the new decision to approve, the Planning Committee singularly fell into the same errors that (with others) led to the quashing of the first determination, namely:
The Committee failed to have regard to a material consideration, namely how the contributions to be made under section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (“ section 106 ”) would encourage trips to a town centre left “crippled” by the new out-of-town store; or, alternatively, failed to provide any proper reasons in relation thereto.
The grant was made in breach of regulation 122(2) of the Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations 2010 (SI 2010 No 948) (“ the CIL Regulations ”), because the section 106 obligations imposed on the developer were not “necessary to make the development acceptable in planning terms”.
The Committee failed to provide a rational and adequately reasoned basis for departing from an earlier decision of the Secretary of State which refused planning permission for the Site for a similar development on the basis of similar section 106 contributions/obligations.
The Committee materially misconstrued paragraph 14 of the National Planning Policy Framework (“the NPPF”).
Before me, David Holgate QC and Gwion Lewis appeared for the Co-op; David Manley QC for the Defendant; and Christopher Katkowski QC for Trilogy. At the outset, I thank them all for their focused and helpful submissions.
The Relevant Legal Principles
The principles relevan