Benacre Estates Co & Anor v Secretary of State for Communities & Local Government & Ors [2009] EWHC 680 (Admin)

QBD (Admin) – 7 Apr 2009

The applicants applied to quash a decision letter in which an inspector granted planning permission with conditions for the construction and operation of two wind turbines and the associated infrastructure on land in Norfolk.

Held: in recognising non-compliance of parts of the interim local policy with national policy, the Planning Inspector was clearly correct as a matter of fact. In saying that he disregarded the policy requirements, the Inspector meant that he was not attaching any weight to those parts of the interim policy which were in conflict with national policy. Issues of weight to attach to a non-statutory policy were matters for the Inspector. Reading the decision letter as a whole, it was clear that what he was doing was looking, first, at the development plan and then weighing the other material considerations that he had identified. It was a classic example of the balance of judgment which was integral to a planning decision. The decision letter was of adequate clarity to the informed reader. The Inspector had a clear understanding of the policies and applied them to the development proposed. He then found that the objective that the policy matrix of the local plan and the interim local plan strove to achieve, namely preservation of the setting of the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, was not harmed to such an extent that the policies could not be overridden by other material considerations. The Inspector did not misdirect himself as to government policy. The key point was whether, in the particular circumstances of the case, the environmental impact of the development was capable of being addressed satisfactorily. The phrase "perceived conflict", used by the Inspector, was no more than another way of describing the balancing of the various factors that went into making the ultimate judgment.

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