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TWO HOURS
UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
PLANNING LAW
SUMMER 2019
time
Answer QUESTION ONE and then ONE FURTHER QUESTION chosen from questions
2-5.
Electronic calculators may be used, provided that they cannot store text
PTO
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QUESTION 1 [ALL CANDIDATES SHOULD ANSWER THIS QUESTION]:
With reference to relevant planning legislation, regulations, policy and associated
case law, discuss the potential legal issues raised by the following planning
application and appeal process:
Mr. Maguire, an elected councillor and longstanding member of a local authority’s
Planning Committee, offered to sell a plot of land he owned on the outskirts of a
town within the local authority’s administrative area to Mr Pickford, a local
residential developer. The land in question consisted of around four acres of
previously undeveloped land on a gentle hillside which sloped down towards a
river which formed one of the boundaries to the site. Mr. Pickford agreed to
purchase the land if it received planning permission for residential use and thus
submitted a planning application for the site. This included an ownership certificate
which stated he was the owner of the land even though, at the time the application
was submitted, the land still belonged to Mr. Maguire.
The application was for 55 houses. The land in question was not allocated for
residential development in the Council’s adopted Local Plan. However, the Local
Plan was somewhat out of date and no longer clearly demonstrated a five year
supply of future housing land allocations. Mr. Pickford asked for an opportunity to
present his case for developing the site orally to the Planning Committee. However,
this request was refused. When the Planning Committee met to consider the
application, Mr Maguire attended the meeting but remained silent throughout the
discussions and abstained from the subsequent vote.
The planning committee voted to refuse planning permission on grounds that the
development was not allocated in the adopted Local Plan for the area and that
they were therefore legally obliged to refuse it. This followed the advice in a brief
written report to the Committee by the authority’s Chief Planning Officer, Mrs
Rose. This decision was not unanimous but was carried by a small majority. Most
of those who voted against the scheme were members of the controlling political
party. Although several of them were personally supportive of the need for new
housing development in the town, they had been threatened with disciplinary
action from the party if they failed to refuse the application.
Mr. Pickford immediately appealed against this refusal of planning permission. The
appointed Planning Inspector, Dr. Southgate, who was also a Chartered Engineer,
refused to allow a local residents’ group which objected to the scheme to participate
in the subsequent Hearing. At the conclusion of the Hearing, the Inspector visited the
proposed site, accompanied by the local authority's Chief Planning Officer. Mr
Pickford had also been invited to attend the site visit but was ill on the day and could
not do so. On visiting the site, the Inspector, thought that a significant proportion of
the land to be developed would be at significant risk of flooding from the
neighbouring river. This issue had not been raised either during the earlier Hearing or
as part of any of the submitted cases from the appellant, local authority or any other
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third parties. However, the Inspector mentioned his concerns over flood risk to the
Chief Planning Officer whilst travelling back to the station in her car after the site visit
and she agreed it was a significant issue as there was a policy in the Authority’s
Local Plan that prohibited built development in flood risk areas.
The inspector subsequently refused planning permission. The main reason for
refusal, set out in the decision letter, was that the proposed development was not
financially viable because of the additional costs that would be incurred to protect the
houses from potential flooding.
QUESTIONS 2-5 [CANDIDATES SHOULD ANSWER ONE OF THE FOLLOWING
QUESTIONS]:
2. Explain the definition of ‘development’ as set out under section 55(1) of the 1990
Town and Country Planning Act and, with reference to relevant case law, discuss
how its meaning has been interpreted by the Courts in respect of either
operational development or material changes of use.
3. With reference to relevant case law, explain the relative importance of the
statutory development plan and other material considerations when determining a
planning application. Discuss whether this relationship has changed since the
initial publication of a National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) in 2012 or its
subsequent revision in 2018.
4. With reference to national planning policy and relevant legal cases, discuss the
difference between a planning condition and a planning obligation and whether the
introduction of the community infrastructure levy (CIL) means that planning
obligations are now redundant.
5. Discuss the various enforcement powers available to local planning authorities to
remedy breaches of planning controls and critically evaluate their adequacy.
END OF EXAMINATION PAPER