Churchill wins High Court challenge on planning appeal dismissal

Specialist housebuilder Churchill Retirement Living has successfully pursued a High Court challenge to overturn the dismissal of its planning appeal for a site in Honiton, Devon.

The Judicial Review centred on Churchill’s plans to redevelop the site on Silver Street – a former livestock collection centre – to create a new retirement development. The Government’s appointed Planning Inspector was found to have erred in law in relying on insufficient evidence to support her conclusion that “many others are reliant on the [livestock collection] centre for employment”.

Judge Elizabeth Cooke, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, on giving leave to appeal, said the “considerable evidence that the development for which permission was sought would not cause the loss of employment land at all”. In fact, it was acknowledged that Churchill’s redevelopment proposal would itself generate a small number of jobs both during and after construction.

The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Homes and Communities agreed to the judgment on the basis of the Judge’s consideration and decided not to contest the challenge.

Churchill was awarded full costs against the Secretary of State and the appeal decision was quashed, so the company’s proposals will revert back to the Planning Inspectorate with the scheme being re-considered by a newly appointed Planning Inspector at an Inquiry in early 2022.

Gary Day, Land, Design & Planning Director for Churchill, said: “We have a very strong track record of planning appeal success in recent years, and it’s unusual for us to have to resort to the High Court to achieve the correct outcome. However, this was a clear case of an Inspector erring in law, so the outcome is a very pleasing and positive result, providing opportunity for us to continue to pursue our plans for much needed specialist housing for local older people and the creation of a vibrant new community in the heart of Honiton.

“It is disappointing that the significant social and economic benefits of retirement housing are not better recognised or understood in the planning system, this case being a clear example of this. Independent research shows that retirement housing is the most effective form of residential development for generating local economic growth, local jobs, and increasing high street spend. It also helps improve the health and wellbeing of those older people who live there, meeting an urgent housing need and in turn freeing up larger family homes vacated by those who choose to downsize.”

Judge’s Observations:

1. The Inspector refused the appeal because the claimant’s proposal does not comply with strategy 32 of the East Devon Local Plan, whose purpose, in summary, is to prevent the loss of employment land.
2. At the heart of the Inspector’s decision was her judgment that whilst only a “relatively small number of people are directly employed on the site, many others are reliant on the centre for employment”, and that “the appeal site therefore generates a large number of jobs”.
3. In fact by the end of the appeal there was one employee on the appeal site; and there appears to have been no evidence that anyone else was reliant on the Livestock Collection Centre for employment.

Although it had served over 450 vendor clients over the previous two years, the Inspector’s conclusion that therefore people were dependent on it for jobs appears to have been an inference, not put to the second defendant’s witnesses, and not necessarily correct. The fact that farmers use the Collection Centre does not mean that that is the only way they can sell livestock.

4. Furthermore, the uncontested evidence was that the use of the site for a Livestock Collection Centre was going to end in October 2021 and that the current lessee was seeking premises elsewhere. The proposal itself, on the other hand, would generate a small number of jobs.
5. There was therefore considerable evidence that the development for which permission was sought would not cause the loss of employment land at all. Against that is the argument that that position should have been tested by the marketing of the site as strategy 32 demands; but there was evidence before the Inspector that demand would be minimal. Accordingly all five of the claimant’s grounds for statutory review are arguable and I grant permission on all grounds.