South Bucks District Council v Porter (No 2)
[2004] UKHL 33; [2004] 1 WLR 1953
Independent editorial summary — not the official judgment. Read the full judgment via the source link.
Ratio Decidendi
Reasons for a planning decision must be intelligible and adequate, enabling the reader to understand why the matter was decided as it was and what conclusions were reached on the principal important controversial issues; they can be briefly stated, the degree of particularity depending entirely on the nature of the issues falling for decision, and need refer only to the main issues in dispute, not to every material consideration. A reasons challenge succeeds only if the aggrieved party can satisfy the court that he has genuinely been substantially prejudiced by the failure to provide an adequately reasoned decision.
Facts
Mrs Porter, a 62-year-old Romany gypsy in serious ill-health, had bought a site in the South Bucks Green Belt in 1985 and lived there in a mobile home with her husband in continuous breach of planning control, having been enforced against and refused permission in earlier proceedings. In February 2002 a planning inspector allowed her appeal and granted a personal, conditional planning permission for retention of the mobile home, finding that her gypsy status, the lack of any alternative site and her chronic ill-health constituted very special circumstances sufficient to override Green Belt policy. The council applied under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to quash the decision; Judge Rich QC dismissed the application, but the Court of Appeal quashed the permission, principally for inadequacy of the inspector's reasons and for failure to have regard to the unlawfulness of her occupation.
Judgment Summary
The House of Lords unanimously allowed Mrs Porter's appeal and restored the inspector's grant of permission. Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, with whom all their Lordships agreed, assembled the authorities from In re Poyser and Mills' Arbitration through Save Britain's Heritage and Bolton and distilled a governing summary of the reasons duty, holding that the inspector's reasoning was both clear and ample - there was no mystery as to what had moved him - and that the Court of Appeal had wrongly inflated the reasons requirement contrary to the principle that the standard of reasoning does not depend on the importance of the issues. On the vires challenge, the unlawfulness of Mrs Porter's occupation was of little if any materiality since her hardship case did not rely on her length of residence, and there was in any event no basis for inferring that the inspector, who recorded the site's planning history, had overlooked it.
Key Quotes
"The reasons for a decision must be intelligible and they must be adequate. They must enable the reader to understand why the matter was decided as it was and what conclusions were reached on the "principal important controversial issues", disclosing how any issue of law or fact was resolved. Reasons can be briefly stated, the degree of particularity required depending entirely on the nature of the issues falling for decision."
— Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood(verbatim, verified against the judgment)
"A reasons challenge will only succeed if the party aggrieved can satisfy the court that he has genuinely been substantially prejudiced by the failure to provide an adequately reasoned decision."
— Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood(verbatim, verified against the judgment)
Subsequent Treatment
Lord Brown's summary of the reasons duty is the definitive modern statement of the standard for reasons challenges in planning, and was expressly endorsed by the Supreme Court in Dover District Council v CPRE Kent [2017] UKSC 79.
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