Cases - R v Derbyshire County Council, ex parte Woods
Record details
- Name
- R v Derbyshire County Council, ex parte Woods
- Date
- [1997]
- Citation
- JPL 958
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Planning control
- Summary
-
The applicant claimed that Derbyshire County Council had failed to interpret a paragraph of Minerals Planning Guidance Note 3 ('MPG3') properly.
The Court of Appeal held that it is for the court to determine, as a matter of law, what the words are capable of meaning. Lord Justice Brooke said:
'If the decision maker attaches a meaning to the words they are not properly capable of bearing, then it will have made an error of law, and it will have failed properly to understand policy.'
He added that MPG3 is not a set of rules written by lawyers for lawyers. It is a Guidance Note and not to be read as if it contained the words of a statute.
(A similar approach is taken to development plans. See Cranage Parish Council v First Secretary of State (2004).)