Sarah Moakes v Canterbury City Council
[2024] EWHC 1272 (Admin)
Greenfields (IOW) Limited, R (on the application of) v Isle of Wight Council
23 August 2024
[2024] EWHC 2107 (Admin)
High Court
A company challenged a planning decision, saying the council's meeting was unfair. The court found some minor problems with the meeting but said a later council meeting fixed them, so the challenge failed.
Key Facts
- •Isle of Wight Council granted planning permission for 473 dwellings, a café, doctors surgery, and office space.
- •Greenfields (IOW) Limited challenged the grant via judicial review on five grounds.
- •The July 2021 planning committee meeting was central to the challenge, with allegations of procedural impropriety, bias, and failure to publish planning obligations.
- •Subsequent committee meetings reconsidered the application, leading to the final grant in August 2023.
- •The main legal question was whether the six-week deadline for judicial review ran from the July 2021 decision or the August 2023 grant.
Legal Principles
Test for apparent bias: whether a fair-minded and informed observer would conclude a real possibility of bias existed.
Porter v Magill [2001] UKHL 68
Six-week deadline for judicial review of planning permission runs from the date of the grant, not earlier resolutions.
R (Burkett) v Hammersmith and Fulham LBC [2002] UKHL 23
If an earlier decision is preliminary to a later, final decision, the later decision triggers the time limit for judicial review.
R (Nash) v Barnett LBC [2013] EWHC 1067 (Admin), affirmed in [2013] EWCA Civ 1004
A public law measure's lawfulness is contingent on the lawfulness of preceding steps; unlawfulness in an earlier step can invalidate the final measure, even if the earlier step is out of time to challenge.
R (Fylde Coast Farms Ltd) v Fylde Borough Council [2021] UKSC 18
Failure to publish a planning obligation (draft or final) breaches statutory duty, but prejudice must be shown to quash permission.
Midcounties Cooperative v Wyre Forest DC [2009] EWHC 964 (Admin)
Section 31(2) Senior Courts Act 1981: Court must refuse relief if highly likely the outcome would not have been substantially different if the conduct complained of had not occurred.
Senior Courts Act 1981, Section 31(2)
Outcomes
Claim dismissed.
While some procedural irregularities were found (exclusion of Cllr Price), subsequent meetings provided a proper process for considering the application. The court found that the applicant did not demonstrate the outcome would have been substantially different even without the procedural irregularities.
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