Stroud v North West Leicestershire DC [2018] EWHC 2886

“36 It is not of course for this court to come to any conclusions of fact on this issue. But what can be said, in my view, is that it must be the case that neither the officer nor the committee members considered that either the objections made, or their own observations, raised any significant issue about lack of convenient alternative provision. There is nothing before me that shows any error in that conclusion at the time.

37 In those circumstances, no issue arose before them as to whether the GoLocal shop should have been considered to be a “key service”. It is well accepted that neither the officers advising the councillors nor the councillors themselves need to refer in detail to every point that is made in favour of or against an application, but only to address those that reasonably appear to them to be the main issues. In this case, given the number of objections, it would have been a practical impossibility to have addressed all the points made individually, let alone to have considered any such as this that might have been, but were not, urged upon them.

38 I conclude, therefore, that although a shop might in principle amount to a “key service” such as would engage Policy IF2, on the facts of this case no such issue had been raised and accordingly no error was committed by failure to consider that policy.” (editor’s emphasis)