A developer who plans to build 350 new homes in the Wiltshire countryside has won a High Court bid to thwart legal moves to have the permission quashed.
Yesterday, Mr Justice Simon struck out summarily a challenge brought by Wiltshire council to a planning inspector’s decision in January to grant Robert Hitchins Ltd planning permission to build up to 350 houses on land off
Wiltshire council had refused planning permission for the development on the basis that the site is in the countryside and outside the framework boundary of any settlement.
However, the inspector considered that the development was appropriate to meet the housing needs of the area, and that this factor outweighed the general presumption against large-scale housing development in the countryside.
Arguing that the council’s challenge to that decision should be struck out Anthony Crean QC for the developer argued that the inspector’s decision to grant planning permission was “scrupulously rational” and should not be interfered with.
Allowing the developer’s application, the judge ruled that the council could only succeed on its claim “if the Inspector’s view was seriously flawed to the point of irrationality, or his reasons for his decision were inadequate to the point of unintelligibility. They were plainly not.”
christian.metcalfe@estatesgazette.com
