The Court of Appeal has determined what is meant by the concept of sustainable drainage principles.
In Menston Action Group v City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council, the Court of Appeal held that the local authority’s approval of a surface water drainage scheme required under a planning condition was not unlawful and did not have to improve the drainage of land next to the site or nearby.
The condition attached to the planning permission for the proposed housing development stated that work should not begin until a surface drainage scheme for water passing through the site and based on sustainable drainage principles had been submitted and approved.
The court had to determine what was meant by the concept of sustainable drainage principles and whether the developer should have considered the improvement of flooding resistance in the area. The developer noted that it was not its responsibility to resolve any prevailing flooding issues, although it accepted that the development should not make the situation worse. The action group argued that the scheme should help alleviate flooding in the vicinity.
The court held that the planning permission and its conditions must be construed as a whole and as a ‘reasonable reader’ would. In this case, the expression ‘based on sustainable drainage principles’ in the condition had to be interpreted in the specific context of a planning permission for the development. In this context, the condition did not have the effect of compelling the authority to require, or the developer to submit, a surface water drainage scheme that would alleviate the problem of flooding beyond the boundaries of the development site.
