The majority of the grounds related to the treatment of Green Belt policy.

The principal argument was based upon the principle in Kemnal Manor Memorial Gardens Ltd v First Secretary of State [2006] 1 P & CR 10 that a decision-maker should not treat development as “not inappropriate” because parts of it are not inappropriate – that would be the fallacy committed by the curate when tackling his bad egg.  The Court held that NYCC had not fallen into that trap.  NYCC was entitled to refer to NPPF para.145 on whether or not development was inappropriate in assessing the impact of the development on the Green Belt, as long as it treated the development as a whole as requiring “very special circumstances” – which it had done.

The Judge also rejected arguments that NYCC had failed to properly to weigh Green Belt harm and “any other harm” together (ground 2), had wrongly directed itself that certain policies could be given no weight (ground 3) and had wrongly conflated the development plan and the emerging development plan in coming to an overall judgment on policy compliance.

Alexander Booth QC and Ned Westaway (instructed by Pinsent Masons LLP) acted for the interested party, EP UK Investments Ltd.