High Court rejects challenge to 400 home Axminster development

The decision was challenged by campaign group Save Our Parkland (SOP), which claimed that the Council had failed to comply with the statutory requirement to determine a planning application in accordance with the Council's development plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise.
The Council's planning officer's report had pointed out that the proposed development, to be located on a greenfield site, departed from local policy which limited development in the countryside. The report advised the planning committee's members that they would have to decide whether the policy conflict was outweighed by the benefits of the development.
The judge said that the report "made clear to the members that there were policies and factors weighing both against and in favour of the grant of planning permission".

"The report was full and detailed and cannot be said to have misled the Committee about any material matters. It is clear that the defendant had to undertake a planning balance exercise. That exercise involved the exercise of the judgment of the members of the Committee and the striking of a planning balance," the judge said.

The judge said that, in his view, the Council had regard to the development plan and to all material considerations and had "exercised a judgment in a manner in which it was entitled to do by granting planning permission".

SOP also claimed that the grant of planning permission prejudiced the Council's emerging Core Strategy. It said that permission should not have been granted until the Council had completed the processes for adopting its Core Strategy.

However, the judge said that a refusal on the basis of prematurity would not have been consistent with national planning policy. He also said it would have been in breach of Government guidance, which sets out that where permission is refused on grounds of prematurity, LPA needs to "demonstrate clearly" how the permission would prejudice the outcome of the emerging development plan document.

"It is right that the democratic process should be followed, because the public have a right to challenge decisions if they feel they are flawed," said the Council's chairman of the Development Management Committee Mark Williamson.

"This ruling not only settles the future of an important development site in Axminster; it also demonstrates that the Council is correct in dealing with planning applications whilst the new Local Plan is still being worked on, rather than delaying progress with vital homes until the Local Plan has been signed off," he said.

"This ties in with the very strong guidance we are getting from central Government that the housing drought has to end and that planning authorities should say yes to sustainable development," Williamson said.