Case No. CO-9102-2010

[1985] AC 375 at 410: the relevant decision must be “so outrageous in its defiance of logic or of accepted moral standards that no sensible person who had applied his mind to the question to be decided could have arrived at it.” Applying that test, even if it were possible to criticise the Planning Committee’s approach in proceeding to a decision without insisting on confidential information, which in my judgment it is not, that decision could not even begin to be described as perverse. 49.At the end of the day, what the Claimant’s case came to was the assertion that to have granted permission for a residential development of 28 houses which might be harmful to the environment where that scale of development might well fulfil 85% of the funding gap was perverse. This argument does not get off the ground. As Mr Village QC submitted, it was entirely open to the Council to conclude that the fact that the residential development would substantially reduce the funding gap (whatever the estimated or eventual extent of that reduction) in order to allow the development of the NFC, outweighed any countervailing planning policies. In my judgment, this third proposed ground of judicial review is also unarguable. 50.Given that I have concluded that this application for permission must fail on the merits, it is strictly unnecessary to conclude whether it should also be excluded on the grounds that it was not made promptly, but since the point was argued I will deal with it shortly. 51.The provisions of CPR 54.5 provide that the claim form must be filed promptly and in any event not later than three months after the grounds to make the claim first arose. A number of decisions have laid down that this provision does not mean that an applicant has three months to file his claim form: he must do so promptly and what is promptness will depend upon the circumstances of the case. The relevant principles were recently authoritatively summarised in paragraphs 20 to 29 of the judgment of Keene LJ in