Romany Travellers win permission for judicial review over site provision

From Local Government Lawyer

A High Court judge has given a group of Romany Travellers permission for a judicial review over a council’s decision to evict them from an unauthorised site on Green Belt land.

In Eastwood, R (on the application of) v The Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead [2013] EWHC 3476 (Admin) the claimants occupied a 4½ acre field at Five Oaks Farm, Shurlock Road, Waltham St Lawrence, Reading, Berkshire in December 2009.

The Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead that month obtained an injunction and issued an enforcement notice.

A planning inspector subsequently concluded that an appeal by the Travellers against the enforcement notice and the refusal to grant full planning consent should be dismissed but that the time for compliance with the enforcement notice should be extended to 18 months.

The inspector said the 18-month period would be reasonable as this would enable alternative accommodation and site provision arrangements to be progressed by the council. The inspector’s decision was subsequently adopted by the Secretary of State.

At a meeting on 14 February this year – after the moratorium had run out – the Royal Borough’s cabinet prioritisation committee resolved to take enforcement action pursuant to s. 178 of the Town & Country Planning Act 1990.

However, not one single further pitch had been provided by the local authority during the moratorium period.

Mr Justice Mostyn said: “With some misgivings I have decided that the decision by the meeting to disregard the fundamental premise of the decisions of the Inspector and the Secretary of State is arguably perverse, and I therefore give permission on the sole ground that ‘the decision of the local authority made on 14 February 2013 and confirmed on 10 April 2013 was perverse in that it failed to give any meaningful weight to the failure of the local authority to provide alternative pitches in circumstances where both the Inspector and the Secretary of State in 2011 had expected that it would’."

However, the judge did refuse to grant permission for judicial review of the council’s decision to decline to determine a planning application in February 2013.

Cllr MJ Saunders, cabinet member for planning and property at the Royal Borough, said: "We are of course disappointed that the court has come to this conclusion, especially after ruling in the council's favour on all previous occasions.

"It is particularly frustrating because the reason given is the council's failure to provide alternative pitches, a challenge we have diligently worked towards resolving despite a real lack of suitable sites in the borough and the recent go-ahead for an extension with 10 pitches at Mill Place in Datchet.”

Cllr Saunders added: "There is some small comfort in Mr Justice Mostyn's refusal to grant permission to judicially review the council's decision to decline to determine a planning application.

"This remains a planning issue and, despite today's setback, we will continue our efforts to clear this grassland of unauthorised development and restore it to its original condition."