A brief update on what has been happening in heritage law over recent months.
The section 66(1) & 72(1) tests in the Town and Country Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
First, aptly, some old news.
Section 66(1) requires decision-makers, in “considering whether to grant planning permission for development which affects a listed building or its setting” to “have special regard to the desirability of preserving the building or its setting or any features of special architectural or historic interest which it possesses”.
Section 72(1) requires decision-makers with respect to any buildings or other land in a conservation area to pay “special attention…to the desirability of preserving or enhancing the character of that area”.
The NPPF has advice on heritage decision-making at paragraphs 132 to 135.
Until the Court of Appeal’s welcome 3 December 2015 ruling in Mordue we planning lawyers were getting in a right pickle. As a result of Sullivan LJ’s Court of Appeal judgment in Barnwell and Lindblom J (as he then was) in Forge Field the law appeared to be that (despite any reference to “harm” in the legislation itself and indeed the expression not being defined in the NPPF) decisions were liable to be quashed if the decision maker had not articulated that it had
– considered whether substantial or less than substantial harm was likely to arise to a listed building or setting of a listed building or to the character of a conservation area
– in the event of any finding of harm, balanced any harm against any counterveiling planning benefits, giving “considerable importance and weight” to the finding of harm (caselaw relied on by the Court of Appeal in Barnwell)
– in the event of any finding of substantial harm, taken into account the NPPF advice that consent should be refused “unless it can be demonstrated that the substantial harm or loss is necessary to achieve substantial public benefits that outweigh that harm or loss” or at least one of four specified criteria are met (para 133, NPPF).
– in the event of any finding of less than substantial harm, given “considerable importance and weight” to that finding (a “strong presumption against planning permission being granted” (Lindblom J in Forge Field), giving greater weight to other considerations, weighing “the harm against the public benefits of the proposal, including securing its optimum viable use (para 134, NPPF).
All of this is still good advice but the risk of a decision being quashed simply because of inadequate incantation of all of these tests is now reduced. The Court of Appeal in Mordue helpfully restored some sanity (albeit with a point deducted for using the word “fasciculus”):
“Paragraph 134 of the NPPF appears as part of a fasciculus of paragraphs, set out above, which lay down an approach which corresponds with the duty in section 66(1). Generally, a decision-maker who works through those paragraphs in accordance with their terms will have complied with the section 66(1) duty. When an expert planning inspector refers to a paragraph within that grouping of provisions (as the Inspector referred to paragraph 134 of the NPPF in the Decision Letter in this case) then – absent some positive contrary indication in other parts of the text of his reasons – the appropriate inference is that he has taken properly into account all those provisions, not that he has forgotten about all the other paragraphs apart from the specific one he has mentioned.”
Explaining away Barnwell, the Court of Appeal put it like this:
“Sullivan LJ’s comments….were made in the context of a decision letter which positively gave the impression that the inspector had not given the requisite considerable weight to the desirability of preserving the setting of the relevant listed buildings, where as a result it would have required a positive statement by the inspector referring to the proper test under section 66(1) to dispel that impression”.
In the wake of Mordue we have since had:
– R (Blackpool Borough Council) v Secretary of State 9 May 2016, where Kerr J found on the facts that an inspector had failed to apply the NPPF tests in the case of proposed major works that the inspector concluded would cause “little harm” to the special architectural or historic interest in a listed synagogue, including there being, as in Barnwell, a series of signposts in the decision letter that led to the judge’s conclusion.
– Boden v East Staffordshire District Council 27 May 2016, where Coulson J found on the facts that errors in articulating the NOPF test (including the common one of describing harm as “minor” without explaining where that sits on the harm/substantial/less than substantial spectrum) did not vitiate the council’s decision.
So we still need to be alert for signs that the right tests haven’t been applied but there is again room for common sense.
No 1 Poultry
Barnwell, Forge Field and Mordue all refer back in their discussion to Save Britain’s Heritage v Number 1 Poultry Limited [1991] 1 WLR 153, HL, the leading case on the standard of reasons to be expected where a planning decision is taken granting permission for development which has a detrimental impact upon listed buildings. The then Secretary of State had overturned an inspector and approved Peter Palumbo’s redevelopment scheme designed by James Stirling which entailed the demolition of eight grade II listed buildings (I remember them well, just across the street from the Cheapside branch of Our Price records). A challenge by Save Britain’s Heritage was rejected by the House of Lords: any inadequacies in the Secretary of State’s reasoning were not such as to substantially prejudice potential objectors in that they did not give rise to substantial doubt that the decision had been made on relevant grounds – a high hurdle for an objector to clear.
The Stirling scheme was completed in 1997. Scroll forward to 2016 and the new owner of the building is wishing to make some changes to its lower levels. In response, Lord Palumbo, the Twentieth Century Society and others have been lobbying for the 1997 building to be listed. Historic England recommended a grade II* listing last year which was rejected by Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport John Whittingdale in December 2015, relying on the Government’s policy that buildings under thirty years old should normally only be listed if they are of “outstanding quality and under threat”. The Twentieth Century Society appealed and to everyone’s surprise Whittingdale indicated last month that the decision is to be reviewed, acknowledging that it may be appropriate to list a building which is under thirty years old if it is of special historic or architectural importance even if it does not meet the “outstanding quality and under threat” tests. The decision is now in the in-tray of his successor Karen Bradley.
In the meantime, planning permission for amendments to the ground floor of the building was resolved to be approved in March by the Corporation of London.
We await the Bradley’s decision, as no doubt do the owners of other high profile modern buildings. And, if the decision is not to list, giving five years’ automatic listing immunity, the failed challenge of the decision not to list Pimlico School, brought by its architect John Bancroft (2004 EWHC 1822), suggests the likely outcome of any judicial review.
World Heritage Sites
UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee lists places of special cultural or physical significance. One of those is the Liverpool – Maritime Mercantile City World Heritage Site.
25 years after the No 1 Poultry case, Save Britain’s Heritage is of course alive and kicking. On 2 August 2016 the Court of Appeal in Save Britain’s Heritage v Liverpool City Council rejected their challenge to planning permission for a scheme in Lime Street, Liverpool. Save argued that the Council had breached the World Heritage Committee’s operational guidelines as well as the Government’s Planning Practice Guidance which require a council to consult with DCMS and via DCMS with the World Heritage Committee in the case of any proposal which may affect the “outstanding universal heritage” of a world heritage site. Save’s position was that the duty did not just apply to proposals that may have an adverse effect, but proposals that may have any effect, negative, neutral or indeed positive. Lindblom LJ disagreed: the proper interpretation could only be “adverse effect”.
This is of course not the only controversial issue facing the Council in relation to its world heritage site status. As is recorded in the judgment, in view of its “serious concern at the potential threat of the proposed development of Liverpool Waters on the Outstanding Universal Value of the property”, the huge scheme by Peel Holdings, the World Heritage Committee in 2012 decided to inscribe the site on its List of World Heritage in Danger.
By way of international perspective on the focus that world heritage site status can bring to issues that go well beyond issues of architecture and built heritage a 25 July 2016 Eco-Business piece describes the impacts of climate change and fossil fuel emissions of sites such as the Great Barrier Reef and a 26 July 2016 article in the Straits Times describes the pressures faced by China’s sites.
Failure to consult
Finally, back to domestic law – the redevelopment of a disused bowling green in Bexhill-on-sea for a sheltered housing development. The Court of Appeal in R (Loader) v Rother District Council 28 July 2016 quashed the planning permission for the scheme, which would adversely the setting of listed buildings. The Victorian Society had objected to a previous scheme but were recorded as having been consulted and not objected to the scheme under challenge. The reality was that officers knew that their attempts to contact the Society had failed. The court held that the summary in the report of the Society’s position was seriously misleading: “In the context of the duty in section 66(1) of the Listed Buildings Act, the committee was misinformed on the consultation of a national amenity society, which had been an objector to a similar proposal, and whose views on this application the council had chosen to seek and might have made a difference to its decision”.
So,
– successive waves of case law on the reasoning needed before allowing harm to be caused to a listed building or conservation area
– radical architects and brave developers, who then try to have their developments listed to prevent anyone else being radical or brave
– international but often powerless, principles of heritage protection versus the simple, practical protections (demonstrated by the Court of Appeal in Loader) of English administrative law…
Simon Ricketts
Personal views, et cetera
SIMONICITY 