Cases - R v Plymouth City Council, ex parte Plymouth and South Devon Co-operative Society Ltd

Record details

Name

R v Plymouth City Council, ex parte Plymouth and South Devon Co-operative Society Ltd

Date

[1993]

Citation

2 PLR 75

Keywords

Planning control

Summary

The draft local plan provided for a large food store at Marsh Mills. The plan said that the store was expected to provide 'substantial community benefits'.

Tesco and Sainsbury submitted applications for stores on two sites at Marsh Mills, so each company was invited to make submissions to the planning committee as to why its application should be preferred to the other. Both companies made offers of community benefits. Sainsbury's offer included the construction of a tourist information centre on the site, an art gallery display facility, a work of art in the car park, and a bird-watching hide overlooking the River Plym. It also offered to contribute £800,000 to the establishment of a park-and-ride facility in the neighbourhood and up to £1m for works to make another site suitable for industrial use (to replace the loss of the Sainsbury site).

The planning committee decided to grant both applications. South Devon Co-op contended that an offer of community benefits must be necessary in that it overcomes what would otherwise have been a planning objection to the development. Therefore the offers were immaterial considerations vitiating the grants of permission.

The Court of Appeal held that there is no additional legal test of necessity. Considerations are material if they are planning considerations and fairly and reasonably relate to the development. They must also pass the Wednesbury test. The offered benefits met these criteria. The fact that such matters might be given less weight on appeal does not mean that a planning authority is not entitled to treat them as material considerations.