High Court rejects judicial review bid as out of time in case where council consulted residents on wrong street

North Northamptonshire Council “fell well below the standard to be expected” in handling planning applications when it twice confused two separate sites and so failed to properly consult the public on a development.

Despite this, Mrs Justice Lang ruled in the High Court that claimant Georgina Wallis had brought her case for judicial review well out of time without sufficient reason.

The case concerned development at a former Weetabix site at Earlstrees Road, Corby, with a change fo use from industrial to storage and distribution.

Ms Wallis lives in the adjacent Hooke Close, and said its residents were adversely affected by the development’s height and scale.

Her claim was not filed until April 2024 and she applied for an extension of time because, owing to an administrative error by the council, Hooke Close residents were not sent consultation letters in either 2021 or 2022 about the planning applications, before the council granted permission.

This arose on both occasions from council planners confusing the site with another nearby one that had also been used to manufacture Weetabix cereals.

In June 2021, the site owner applied for change of use from B2 to B8 and a delegated officer's report recommended permission should be granted, which was accepted by a senior planning officer.

Lang J said that although the application notice was published in a local newspaper and the council's website,”there were a number of errors in the processing of the application by the council”.

She said consultation letters were sent to residents who live near to the wrong former Weetabix site and so those in Hooke Close were never consulted and “the planning officer's statement…that neighbour notification had taken place and no representations were received, was misleading”.

The council decided to again consult neighbouring properties but the planning officer mistakenly sent consultation letters to 20 residential and commercial properties close to the wrong site and again those in Hooke Close were missed.

Permission was granted and construction work began in September 2023.

Ms Wallis told the court she was aware of demolition and groundworks by September 2023, but did not think that any development would affect her property and only in January 2024 did she notice a large metal framework being erected behind her garden.

She complained and a planning officer explained the error with the consultation letters but maintained that the statutory consultation requirements had been met.

Her judicial review claim was then served in April 2024 on the basis that the council acted unlawfully and improperly in failing to consult the right group of members of the public.

That month, a council report acknowledged “that in the processing of the application relating to the Weetabix site there had been non-compliance with the law”,  Lang J noted.

Sanjit Sull, North Northamptonshire’s monitoring officer, said in her witness statement that the head of planning and enforcement had said that even if the application for planning permission was re-considered following a re-consultation, it was highly likely permission would be granted.

Lang J said there had been “extreme ‘undue delay’ in filing the claim”, amounting to some two and a half years out of time.

She said granting an extension to enable Ms Wallis to proceed with her claim would substantially prejudice the developer who had just completed a distribution centre at the site without any prior knowledge of the defects in the consultation process.

Lang J said: “The claimant is a competent professional person (a senior recruitment consultant) and…she was capable of looking at the council's website to check the details of the proposed development and contacting the planning officer to complain.

“Her reason for not doing so sooner was that she did not anticipate that the new building, constructed in place of the previous factory building behind her garden, would affect her, and it would probably be housing.

“However, there was no basis for that assumption, and she took a considerable risk by not checking the details of the development sooner. She was living next to an established industrial estate, which is designated for employment use, not housing. There is a very large warehouse at the eastern end of Hooke Close, and another one nearby. Therefore it was likely that the new development would also be a sizeable industrial building.”

She said that even when Ms Wallis became aware of the details of the planning permission, in January 2024, “she unreasonably delayed for nearly three months before filing her claim for judicial review”.

Ms Wallis had a remedy available through the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, the judge said.

Lang J concluded: “There is a strong public interest in the competent and lawful processing of planning applications by local planning authorities.

“This council has fallen well below the standard to be expected. However, its willingness to investigate its failings thoroughly in an investigation report, and its decision to introduce root and branch changes to its planning department, are encouraging.

Lang J said there was no good reason for the delay in bringing the case and Ms Wallis should pay the council’s costs subject to the costs limit of £5,000.

A council statement said: “Although we welcome the decision of the court, we accept that there are still lessons to be learnt and improvements to be made.

“We have gone through a full and thorough internal investigation to help us learn from this case and a planning improvement board has been established as part of this process.

“We are determined to learn from this and will continue to further strengthen our internal processes.”

Mark Smulian