The Court of Appeal recently considered a case, Palmer vs Herefordshire Council & Another that provides further clarity on the weight that should be given to the possible effect of development on listed heritage assets and how application reports to a Planning Committee should be drafted.
The decision confirms that under S66 of the Planning [Listed Building and Conservation Areas] Act 1990, a Planning Authority and its specialist officers have a duty to properly identify in an application report to a Planning Committee that full consideration of identified harmful material considerations and how they should be mitigated has been set out. The case also re-confirms that such consideration and reporting must show and suggest how relevant mitigation should be applied and that the benefit of the development outweighs any potential harm and that this was an acceptable way to approach the matter.
The case re-states the principles laid out previously in Samuel Smiths Old Brewery [Tadcaster] vs Selby District Council. This established the points of law that to succeed in a judicial review an application has to show that the overall effect of the report ‘significantly’ misled the Planning Committee about relevant material considerations and the reporting on the application remained uncorrected at the time a decision was made.
For more information please contact:
John Foddy, Managing Director
FoddyConsult