Barrow upon Soar Parish Council v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government

摘要

The claimant parish council (B) sought to quash a decision of an inspector appointed by the first defendant Secretary of State granting outline planning permission to the third defendant developer (J) to build up to 300 dwellings on a 15ha site of agricultural land. The second defendant local authority had refused two of J's applications for permission. Initially, it was agreed that the appeal should be dealt with on paper but the Secretary of State decided to deal with the appeal himself following a public inquiry. The appointed inspector recommended that permission should be granted subject to a number of conditions. B submitted that the evidence before the inspector was such that he could not reasonably have decided that the development had realistic prospects of being delivered within a reasonable time as, in order to comply with the National Planning Policy Framework, there had to be a reasonable prospect that housing would be deliverable on the site within five years; the inspector had placed the burden on it to show it was not deliverable whereas it was for J to establish that it was.