The local authority, Chorley Borough Council, refused to grant planning permission as long ago as 21 December 2021.

The Ministry of Justice appealed against that refusal, and the Appeal was recovered by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities, and Local Government. 

An inquiry was held between 12 - 22 July 2022, following which the Inspector, Tom Gilbert-Wooldridge, produced a report recommending refusal. On 19 January 2023, the then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Local Government and Building Safety, Lee Rowley MP issued a “minded to grant” letter, but gave the appellant and other parties the opportunity to provide further evidence, and allowed for the parties to respond to that evidence, before reaching a final decision.

Following those representations, further inquiry sessions were convened in March and April 2024. In the meantime, changes to the NPPF imposed a new requirement for a sequential assessment in relation to flood risk, which had not been provided and which the Ministry of Justice did not provide. In those circumstances, the Inspector produced a supplementary report which again recommended that the Secretary of State refuse to grant planning permission, now on grounds which included flood risk.

By a decision letter dated 3 December 2024, the Secretary of State granted planning permission.

The Claimant challenged that decision on two Grounds. By Ground 1, she argued that the Secretary of State had failed adequately to explain her reasons for departing from the Inspector's finding that there would be an unacceptable adverse impact upon highways safety, relying on the decision in Horada v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government [2016] P.T.S.R. 1271. Ground 2 was put on the basis that in granting planning permission without a sequential assessment, and in taking into account an analysis of alternative sites conducted in the context of green belt policy when reducing the weight to the conflict with national planning policy on flood risk, the Secretary of State had acted irrationally.

Permission was initially refused on the papers by Mould J on 2 April 2025, with the Claimant renewing its application on both grounds. Following a half day hearing on 4 June 2025, at which both the Claimant and the Ministry of Justice were represented by leading counsel, Eyre J dismissed the claim on both grounds, holding that the Secretary of State's reasons were adequate in context, and that her approach to attributing weight to highways impacts and flood risk (notwithstanding the conflict with national policy in relation to the latter) was not irrational.

Charles Streeten acted for the First Defendant, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, instructed by the Government Legal Department.