Potter, R (On the Application Of) v Amber Valley Borough Council
2014
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
UK
CORAM
- MR JUSTICE HICKINBOTTOM
Areas of Law
- Administrative Law
- Property and Real Estate Law
2014
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
UK
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The Claimant challenged the Council's decision to grant planning permission to their neighbors, arguing the Council provided inadequate reasons, failed to comply with statutory obligations, and imposed unenforceable conditions. The court found that the Council failed to provide adequate summary reasons for its decision, quashed the grant of planning permission, and remitted the application for redetermination. The case highlights the necessity for planning authorities to provide clear and adequate reasons when granting planning permission, especially when this decision contradicts an officer's recommendation.
Mr Justice Hickinbottom:
Introduction
The Claimant owns a property known as Mount Farm, Hazelwood, Belper in Derbyshire. The Interested Parties, Mr & Mrs Wood, live next door at Mount Farm Barn, which they bought and developed into a dwelling with the benefit of planning permission in 2004. The Defendant (“the Council”) is the local planning authority for the area.
In this judicial review, the Claimant seeks to quash the grant of planning permission by the Council on 20 December 2012 for a development comprising a new house immediately to the north of and behind both Mount Farm Barn and Mount Farm, on land belonging to Mr & Mrs Wood. I will deal with the grounds in detail in due course; but, briefly, it is submitted on behalf of the Claimant that the reasons given by the Council were inadequate, the Council failed to comply with its statutory obligation to determine the application in accordance with the development plan unless other material considerations indicate otherwise, the Council failed to take into account a particular element of policy as a material consideration, and the Council imposed a condition that is unenforceable.
The Relevant Planning Policies
A number of the grounds are focused on the relevant planning policies, to which I turn first.
The main policies relevant to this claim are found in the local development plan; but the provisions of paragraphs 47-49 of the National Planning Policy Framework are worthy of note. “To boost significantly the supply of housing”, paragraph 47 requires local authorities to assess housing need on the basis of objective evidence and to “identify and update annually a supply of specific deliverable sites sufficient to provide five years worth of housing against their housing requirements and to identify sites for satisfy that need over the next five years…”. The uncontroverted evidence of Mr Derek Stafford, the Council’s Assistant Director of Planning and Regeneration, is that there was in December 2012 – and still is – a chronic shortage of housing land supply in the borough (13 December 2013 Statement, paragraph 22).
The relevant local policy provisions are found in the Amber Valley Local Plan 2006.
By Policy H3, there is generally a presumption in favour of planning permission for housing development in identified urban areas, but those do not include Hazelwood.
Outside those urban areas, a distinction is drawn between sites within and those outside the built framework of a settlement. For the fo