Housebuilder attacks Neighbourhood Development Plan

Neighbourhood planning is back under judicial focus at the High Court, in a dispute over a local authority’s decision to submit a Neighbourhood Development Plan to a referendum. Though the ballot has already been held, and more than 90% of a near 26% turnout voted in favour of the Uppingham Neighbourhood Development Plan (UNDP), developer Larkfleet Homes is seeking a ruling from Collins J quashing the decision. In a case that saw the judge ask why Parliament had made things so complicated, Larkfleet claims that Rutland county council has wrongly included site allocation policies in the UNDP, and failed to comply with its obligations under the Strategic Environmental Assessment directive. Larkfleet attacks the council’s stance that the UNDP could be “screened out” from the SEA directive, claiming that it failed to consider one of the applicable criteria − whether the UNDP determined the use of a “small area” − and considered only the likely significant negative effects on the environment, when it should also have taken into account likely significant positive impacts as well. Charles Banner argued that the council exceeded its powers in including site allocation policies in the UNDP that were the exclusive province of development plan documents (DPDs). He said that that no consideration was given to whether the UNDP covered a “small area”, and that in fact it relates to the entirety of the plan-making authority, Uppingham town council’s, area − the second-largest town in the county council’s area. He argued that it also proceeded on the erroneous basis that only negative environmental effects were relevant to its screening decision. However, in written arguments before the court, Martin Carter said that these are “extremely technical challenges” that did not demonstrate any actual failure to consider the statutory scheme for plan-making or the environmental effects of development proposed in the UNDP. The site allocations, he said, had already been the subject of an SEA higher up the planning hierarchy. He said: “The claim is made by a disappointed developer seeking to promote a site in a location which is not identified as an appropriate allocation in the Neighbourhood Plan and the claim is, in effect, a commercial objection seeking on unmeritorious and technical grounds to disrupt the community neighbourhood planning process, which has now received the support of 92% of those voting through the democratic process of a referendum.” The Queen on the application of Larkfleet Homes Ltd v Rutland County Council Planning Court (Collins J) 13 November 2014 Charles Banner and Heather Sargent for the claimant. Martin Carter for the respondent.