Local plans: soundness

Barker Mill Estates Trustees v Test Valley BC 2016 EWHC 3028

Zurich Assurance Limited v Winchester City Council 2014 EWHC 758

Town End Farm Partnership v Sunderland City Council v Secretary of State for Housing Communities and Local Government

[2018] EWHC 2662 (Admin)

“9 I now turn to the task of the inspector dealing with the examination in public into the IAMP Action Area Plan. It needs to be remembered that his task is to consider whether the plan is sound. There are legal provisions that go with that, but there are two points to be borne in mind. First of all, soundness is not the same as whether the plan be improved upon by a different set of arrangements. That is not the test for soundness. The second is that although objectors are heard, the whole structure of an examination in public is different from that of a public inquiry or a series of public inquiries into planning applications. This affects not just the format of the investigation and the focus of the inspector’s task, it also affects the particular way in which he is obliged to give reasons for the conclusions he comes to. But, in particular, his reasons obligation is not to give reasons as to why each individual objection is not accepted. His task is to give reasons for his recommendations, which will be recommendations for or against the soundness of the plan. I cannot improve upon what the judge said in para.28 and 29 of Cooper Estates Strategic Land Limited v Royal Tunbridge Wells Borough Council [2017] EWHC 224 (Admin) .

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