Judgment has now been handed down in the judicial review brought by the Rame Protection Group (RPG) to challenge the decision by Cornwall Council to grant planning approval for a large dwelling on a green-field site on a prominent ridge within the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) on the iconic Rame Head in South-East Cornwall.

The Honourable Mrs Justice Tipples accepted both arguments presented by the RPG’s barrister at the High Court hearing on the 24-25th February this year. The decision to grant planning approval for PA20/03747 has therefore been quashed. The full 28-page/12,000 word judgment can be viewed here.

At the High Court hearing, the RPG had argued that;

1) Cornwall Council breached its duty to provide adequate reasons for its decision to set aside the professional judgments of the Principal Planning Officer and the Planning Officer of the AONB, who both strongly recommended refusal of the planning application.

2) Cornwall Council failed to show that the decision to grant planning approval was in line with local planning policy.

In her summary, the judge concluded that – in respect of the first of the RPG’s objections – no reasons at all were given as to why ‘the Committee thought the social and economic benefits of the proposed development outweighed the landscape harm’.

As regards the second objection, the planning committee had invoked Policy 7, which permits new buildings for agricultural workers in the open countryside where need can be shown for a property in a specific location. Policy 7, however, makes no mention of the AONB. This is referred to in Policy 23 of the local plan and Policy 23 specifies that any new buildings should be of an appropriate scale, mass and design, that they should meet a local need and be located so as to address the sensitivity and capacity of protected landscapes. The judge’s view was that even if this had applied, Policy 23 has an additional clause, which says that development proposals must also ‘conserve and enhance the landscape character and beauty of the AONB’. She agreed that this could not conceivably be true in this case, stating that:

“The consequence of this is that establishing the “essential need” criteria under paragraph 5 of policy 7, does not itself justify development in the AONB, and the Committee failed to properly interpret policies 7 and 23 of the Local Plan (para 102).”

Far-reaching implications

The significance of this judgment is that that private ‘need’ alone does not in itself justify developments inside an AONB. It re-asserts the critical importance of the protective umbrella that the AONB offers when it comes to developments in the open countryside. That was the whole point of arguing the case against the proposal and therefore of the judicial review. It is the RPG’s hope that this will help prevent similar attempts to undermine protective legislation throughout Cornwall and beyond.