Council "within its powers" to withhold key sites from neighbourhood forum

A district council was acting within its powers when it withheld certain development sites from one of the first neighbourhood forums established under the Localism Act 2011, the High Court has ruled.

The Daws Hill Neighbourhood Forum (DHNF) – which grew out of the Daws Hill Residents Association – brought judicial review proceedings over the decision by Wycombe District Council to exclude two areas with development potential.

The two sites at the centre of the dispute were the RAF Daws Hill site and the Handy Cross Sports Centre site (also referred to as the Wycombe Sports Centre).

The DHNF argued that this decision meant they were left with an “artificially reduced rump area” of already developed residential housing and an “effectively meaningless” forum.

But in Daws Hill Neighbourhood Forum & Ors, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government & Anor [2013] EWHC 513 Mr Justice Supperstone said section 61G(5) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, as inserted by the 2011 Act, required a local planning authority in determining an application for a neighbourhood area to consider whether the proposed area was appropriate.

He said: “The discretion given to the authority is a broad one. The exercise of discretion turns on the specific factual and policy matrix that exists in the individual case at the time the determination is made.”

Mr Justice Supperstone added that, in his judgment, the council properly had regard to the specific circumstances that existed at the time when the decision was made to designate a neighbourhood area which excluded the two sites.

“None of the grounds of challenge to the decision taken by the council in this case have been made out,” he concluded.

The council’s reasons for excluding the sites related to: their strategic nature; the wide communities of interest, which were greater than the immediate Daws Hill area; the timing as plans and applications for the sites were well advanced; and the other opportunities for the local community to input to the planning of the two sites.

In a statement the local authority said: “Wycombe District Council acted in good faith to interpret this complex and new area of law. We sought legal advice before deciding to exclude the key sites which the forum proposed within their neighbourhood plan.

“Our duty is to work with local residents to help them establish a neighbourhood forum but also to fulfil our role to act in the wider interest of the district and, as the local planning authority, to find the right balance applying national planning policies and guidelines."

Commenting on the ruling, Cllr Hugh McCarthy, Cabinet Member for Planning and Sustainability at Wycombe, said: “This has been a challenging episode for all concerned as it is such a new and untested area of law.

“The judge’s decision is important as it will help local councils and communities work within the spirit and intention of the legislation. We are pleased that the judge has confirmed that issues such as those which influenced the council’s decision were right and proper to take into account.”  

It is understood that DNHF’s barrister has submitted a written application to the High Court saying that the judge had misinterpreted the law and his clients wished to take the case to the Court of Appeal.

Leigh Day & Co, the DHNF's lawyers, claimed that the ruling was “a major blow” to the government’s localism agenda and would impact upon groups seeking to obtain neighbourhood planning powers.

It argued that Wycombe’s decision “deliberately frustrated the clear purpose of the Act and the neighbourhood planning scheme”.

Leigh Day & Co also said it went against the wording of the Department for Communities and Local Government’s Plain English Guide to the Localism Act.

Jamie Beagent, the solicitor at the firm who acted for the DHNF, said: “The judgment effectively gives local authorities carte blanche to limit local communities’ involvement in neighbourhood planning matters.”


Stewart Armstrong, chairman of the forum, added: “DHNF members have expended considerable time and effort in implementing neighbourhood planning for the Daws Hill Area under the Localism Act 2011.

“We feel hugely frustrated in having our local area artificially subdivided by the council. We have always acknowledged the 'strategic' nature of both the excluded sites but it is clear that there are sufficient safeguards in the legislation to ensure that our neighbourhood plan would not thwart the council’s strategic vision for the area.”

Armstrong said: "As the legislation stands, we feel it is a dead letter. It cannot be right to propose new powers for local communities who are keen to get involved in local planning issues, but then allow local authorities to arbitrarily deny those powers because they want to keep control.”

Armstrong urged Communities Secretary Eric Pickles to intervene “to make the intent of the new Localism Act clear for other neighbourhood fora facing the same situation”. 

Suzanne Ornsby QC and Isabella Tafur of Francis Taylor Building acted for Wycombe District Council.

Philip Hoult