Appeal against upheld planning permission for holiday village dismissed

28th May 2021


Web p10 legal appeal against upheld planning permission credit shutterstock 552046483

Related Topics

Related tags

  • Planning

Author

Martin Kerlogue

In R. (on the application of Hudson) v Windsor and Maidenhead RBC, the appellant appealed against a decision to uphold the local authority’s grant of planning permission for the construction of a holiday village at the Legoland Windsor Resort.

The resort was situated within the green belt, and the development site was bordered on three sides by a site of special scientific interest and special area of conservation (SAC), which was home to the largest number of veteran oaks in Britain.

The officer’s report for the authority’s panel, recommended that planning permission be refused because the proposal constituted inappropriate development in the green belt, and it had not been adequately shown that the development could be achieved without causing harm to significant trees. Despite this, in 2018 the panel voted to approve the proposal in principle.

In 2019 the authority granted full planning permission subject to conditions for protection of significant/veteran trees, which should be read in conjunction with an agreement under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 between the authority and interested party. The interested party prepared various plans that had to be approved before work could begin. It was this decision that the appellant had unsuccessfully challenged.

The appellant argued that the judge had erred in concluding that it was permissible to rely on the planning conditions included in the decision notice and the agreement when considering whether the authority gave adequate reasons for its decision; they stated there was no authority for the proposition that, when seeking to understand the reasons for a decision to grant planning permission, an interested member of the public could not look at components of the decision, such as the planning conditions or agreement.

On the contrary, planning conditions were part of the decision itself, and the conditions and agreement were automatically placed on the planning register along with the decision. All relevant material forming part of the 2019 decision was publicly available and contained all an informed member of the public needed to know about why the authority had concluded that the mitigating measures would prevent harm to veteran trees.

The appellant claimed that no reasons had been provided to explain why the panel decided it was possible to avoid harm to veteran trees, and that there was nothing in the transcript of the meeting to show that a majority of the panel members agreed that such harm would be avoided. This argument was regarding the initial 2018 meeting, which was not part of the judicial review. In the 2019 meeting, the panel had concluded that there would be no harm to veteran trees provided that the relevant conditions were complied with. This was expressly stated in the planning permission.

Another argument for the appeal was that the authority had failed to carry out an appropriate assessment of the development’s effect on the SAC under the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017. Nevertheless, the judge found that the outcome would not have been substantially different if an appropriate assessment had been undertaken: “In my view, a fair reading of the documents as a whole confirms that the judge’s conclusion was correct.”

There was no argument about the seriousness of the breach, but the public had not been deprived of the opportunity to comment and object. The authority and interested party had discharged the burden of showing that, even if an appropriate assessment had been carried out, the planning application’s outcome would not have been any different. The appeal was dismissed.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Subscribe

Subscribe to IEMA's newsletters to receive timely articles, expert opinions, event announcements, and much more, directly in your inbox.


Transform articles

The time is now

Dr Julie Riggs issues a call to arms to tackle a modern-day human tragedy

15th March 2024

Read more

The UK’s new biodiversity net gain (BNG) requirements could create 15,000 hectares of woodlands, heath, grasslands, and wetlands and absorb 650,000 tonnes of carbon each year.

13th March 2024

Read more

Campaign group Wild Justice has accused the UK government of trying to relax pollution rules for housebuilders “through the backdoor”.

14th February 2024

Read more

Digital tracking, packaging data delays and new collections provide a waste focus for this edition’s environmental round-up by legislation expert Neil Howe

28th November 2023

Read more

Environmental crimes could result in prison sentences of up to 10 years and company fines of 5% of turnover under a proposed EU law agreed by the European parliament and council.

21st November 2023

Read more

Stuart McLachlan and Dean Sanders discuss their book: The Adventure of Sustainable Performance: Beyond ESG Compliance to Leadership in the New Era.

14th November 2023

Read more

Media enquires

Looking for an expert to speak at an event or comment on an item in the news?

Find an expert

IEMA Cookie Notice

Clicking the ‘Accept all’ button means you are accepting analytics and third-party cookies. Our website uses necessary cookies which are required in order to make our website work. In addition to these, we use analytics and third-party cookies to optimise site functionality and give you the best possible experience. To control which cookies are set, click ‘Settings’. To learn more about cookies, how we use them on our website and how to change your cookie settings please view our cookie policy.

Manage cookie settings

Our use of cookies

You can learn more detailed information in our cookie policy.

Some cookies are essential, but non-essential cookies help us to improve the experience on our site by providing insights into how the site is being used. To maintain privacy management, this relies on cookie identifiers. Resetting or deleting your browser cookies will reset these preferences.

Essential cookies

These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website.

Analytics cookies

These cookies allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors to our website and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works.

Advertising cookies

These cookies allow us to tailor advertising to you based on your interests. If you do not accept these cookies, you will still see adverts, but these will be more generic.

Save and close