Court of Appeal rejects bid to save development site for school use

A parish council that hoped to keep an ancient school site in the Buckinghamshire village of Chalfont St Peter in use for education has failed again in its challenge to plans for its residential development. The Court of Appeal rejected Chalfont St Peter parish council’s attack on Chiltern district council’s decision to identify the former convent school site for residential development in its Core Strategy and to grant planning permission to the site’s owners, Holy Cross Sisters Incorporated, for a proposal for almost 200 houses and a care home. The parish council had claimed that the development will leave the village short of adequate school facilities and lead to an unacceptable loss of playing fields. It championed a “land swap” through which the overcrowded Chalfont St Peter Church of England school would move to the site from its current grounds, where surrounding housing leaves no room for expansion. However, the Court of Appeal ruled on 28 October that no funding was in place to pay for such a move, and that a government inspector who was consulted on the Core Strategy was entitled to take the view that the proposal was not viable, and therefore not a reasonable alternative use of the site. Moore-Bick LJ said: “I think it is clear that, whatever aspirations the parish council may have had for the school, and despite the support available from the diocese, sufficient funds were unlikely to be made available for it to move to the convent school site. The county council was unwilling to provide funds for the project and the diocese was not offering to make good any shortfall between the sale price of the school’s existing site and the purchase of the more extensive site required for the project. “The Trustees could not be forced to sell part of the convent school site at a price below its development value and it was therefore likely that the purchase of the larger site would give rise to a shortfall of significant proportions. “There was no proposal for bridging that gap; the scheme was therefore not viable and did not need to be considered because it could not come to fruition.” Beatson LJ, dismissing a claim that the inspector had failed to adequately express his reasons on the school swap point, said that he had done “just enough” and that, even if he had not, the parish council would not have been prejudiced In their challenge to the grant of planning permission, the parish council claimed that the council made a mistake of fact relating to the amount of pitches that would be lost. However, Beatson LJ said that it was for the council’s planning committee to determine the extent of the playing fields, and to decide whether the occasional “possibly only once a year” use of certain land for sporting activities meant that it should be included as part of them. He said that the committee’s decision on the extent of the playing fields was “clearly open to it”. The planning permission, granted in December 2010, allows development of the 5.1 ha site with up to 198 homes and a 74–bed care home. The Holy Cross Sisters say that alternative playing fields of the same size and shape will be provided as part of the development scheme. The parish council said that the former convent school site has a depth of history reaching back into medieval times, including 17th-century associations with the Quakers and Judge Jeffreys. The Queen (on the application of Chalfont St Peter Parish Council) v Chiltern District Council Court of Appeal (Moore-Bick, Beatson and Briggs LJJ) 28 October 2014 Ian Dove, QC (instructed by Richard Buxton, Cambridge) for the appellant Morag Ellis, QC (instructed by Sharpe Pritchard) for the respondent Mark Lowe, QC and Asitha Ranatunga (instructed by Pothecary Witham Weld) for the interested party