Planning policies that protect the Green Belt from development are powerful – but they are not insurmountable and balancing conservation objectives against human needs is no mere mathematical exercise. The High Court made those points in upholding planning consent granted for a traveller site.
A traveller’s application for planning consent to move caravans for his family onto an overgrown pony paddock was firmly rejected by the local authority on the basis that the development would encroach unacceptably into the countryside and lead to a loss of openness in the Green Belt. He nevertheless proceeded to create a hardstanding area on which a number of caravans were placed.
The council responded by issuing enforcement notices requiring restoration of the site to its former condition. The traveller appealed to a planning inspector, who noted that the development was inappropriate in the Green Belt and therefore harmful by definition. He nevertheless upheld the appeal, overturned the enforcement notices and granted retrospective planning consent for the development.
He found that the development had caused no significant harm to the character and appearance of the area and that there were very special circumstances justifying a grant of permission. The harm to the Green Belt was clearly outweighed by the best interests of children living on the site and their wider family’s personal circumstances. He also noted the scarcity of alternative sites that could meet the family’s needs and that there was a very high likelihood that any other suitable sites would also be in the Green Belt.
Challenging the inspector’s decision, the council argued that, in finding that the ‘very special circumstances’ test enshrined in Paragraph 144 of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) had been met, the inspector should have carried out a two-stage balancing exercise. It contended that substantial weight had first to be given to the harm that the development caused to the Green Belt and only then should the inspector have placed the children’s needs and other factors into the balance.
Dismissing the appeal, however, the Court noted that the NPPF serves as guidance to decision makers but is not a statute. The council’s interpretation of Paragraph 144 was excessively forensic and literal. The metaphorical weighing up of competing factors required of the inspector was not an exercise in precise mathematics, akin to balancing weights on a scale.
The inspector was not obliged to perform an artificially sequenced two-stage process but rather a single exercise of planning judgment to assess whether there were very special circumstances justifying the grant of permission notwithstanding the importance of preserving the Green Belt. His decision could not be faulted.