Local authorities that do not have in hand a five-year supply of deliverable sites for new housing can have developments which they view as undesirable foisted upon them. As a High Court case showed, however, the means by which such supplies are calculated can give rise to dramatic differences of opinion.
A local authority refused consent for construction of 140 new homes near to a small town on grounds that the site fell outside the boundaries of the existing settlement and that the project would conflict with countryside protection policies. Following a public inquiry, the would-be developer’s appeal against that decision was rejected by a government planning inspector.
In upholding the developer’s challenge to the latter decision, the Court noted that the inspector had failed to resolve the central issue of whether the council had in place a five-year supply of housing land. The council claimed to have met that target, but the developer argued that that was based upon a mistaken method of calculation and that the correct figure was slightly below two years.
In his decision letter, the inspector described the divide between the council's and the developer's figures as a huge gulf and said that he was unable to reach a firm conclusion on the issue. The Court, however, found that there was no coherent or clearly justifiable reason as to why he had failed to reach any finding on what was agreed to be the main issue in the appeal.
The inspector had in any event applied a tilted balance in favour of the development due to an inconsistency between a local policy and the National Planning Policy Framework. However, the Court observed that that did not make the five-year supply issue irrelevant when considering the weight to be given to the respective benefits and disadvantages of the development. The inspector decision was quashed and the planning application was sent back to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government for fresh consideration.
Gladman Developments Limited v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government & Anr. Case Number: CO/2948/2018