AC-2024-MAN-000347 - [2025] EWHC 2630 (Admin)

Ms Hunt’s comments on the Sandford principle came towards the end of a brief discussion between members of the Committee as to the correct approach to its application in their decision making. That brief discussion was initiated by Mr Walter. He correctly reminded his colleagues that the Sandford principle required the Committee to give greater weight to the first statutory purpose of protecting the natural environment of the Lake District National Park.

Mr Walter’s correct statement of the approach required of the Committee in applying the Sandford principle was then immediately endorsed by the Chair, Mr Kidd. Mr Kidd then briefly outlined the Committee’s duty in applying the Sandford principle, essentially in the terms of section 11A(1A) of the 1949 Act. The Defendant’s Head of Development Management, Mr Smith, then also endorsed Mr Walter’s understanding of the Sandford principle as being correct, that if the Committee found the planning application to give rise to a tension between the two statutory purposes, they were required to greater weight to the first purpose over the second purpose.

It was at that point that Ms Hunt made the comments which are the basis of this ground of challenge. She firstly acknowledged the importance of the Sandford principle. She then stated her familiarity with the principle. She then said that she had taken the principle into account in considering the planning application for the development. She briefly and correctly summarised the two statutory purposes. She did not quarrel with the explanation of the Sandford principle given by her colleagues and Mr Smith. Nor did she seek to add to or to qualify that explanation. Indeed, there is nothing in the recorded discussion to suggest that there was disagreement between members of the Committee as to what the Sandford principle required of them. All who sought to articulate the principle did so correctly, reminding themselves that if they found the development to give rise to a conflict between the two statutory purposes of designation of National Parks, they were required to give greater weight to the first purpose in determining the planning application. Ms Hunt did not demur from that explanation of the Committee’s duty under section 11A(1A) of the 1949 Act.

Ms Hunt did offer some very brief thoughts on the extent to which the planning application proposed development which would fulfil or conflict with the two statutory purposes. She was clear in her view that the development would fulfil the second purpose of promoting opportunities for the public’s understanding and enjoyment of the special qualities of the Lake District National Park. In summarising his reasons for opposing the grant of planning permission, Mr Walter indicated that he shared that view. There is nothing to suggest that the development’s ability to further the second statutory purpose was a point of disagreement between members of the Committee.

On the question whether the development would further the first statutory purpose, Ms Hunt was more circumspect. In the passage on which the Claimant relies, Ms Hunt did not express a decided view as to whether the development would fulfil that purpose. She confined herself to suggesting that there was an argument that opening up a hitherto inaccessible element of the Lake District’s industrial heritage to public view would enhance the cultural heritage of the National Park. She did not state whether she endorsed that argument. Nor did she express any view as to the weight to be given to that argument, were it to be accepted.

The Claimant submits that the suggestion itself was plainly an error of law, on the basis that the provision of public access and promotion of better understanding of a heritage asset can only be taken to further the second statutory purpose under section 5(1) of the 1949 Act. In my view, the Claimant has misunderstood the point that Ms Hunt was seeking to make. Her point was a simple and straightforward one. The planning officer had concluded that the increased activity within the quarry site proposed by the development would result in low level harm to the quarry as an element of the Lake District’s industrial heritage. On the advice of the planning officer at paragraph 5.80 of the Report, it was the existence of that harm to cultural heritage which engaged the Sandford principle. Ms Hunt’s point was that the resulting degree of conflict between the two statutory purposes should not be overstated, it being arguable that there was at least a degree of harmony between offering the opportunity for the public to appreciate at close hand a significant and hitherto underappreciated feature of the National Park’s cultural heritage; and the conservation and enhancement of that cultural heritage.

There is no error of law in that suggested argument. Nor is it irrational. In R(Stubbs) v Lake District National Park Authority [2021] PTSR 261 at [40], Dove J observed that section 11(1A) of the 1949 Act operates in practice on the basis of broad and often subjective judgments by relevant authorities in relation to how the best interests of the statutory purposes are to be served by the decisions which they are called upon to make. Here, Ms Hunt did not dispute the planning officer’s conclusion that the development gave rise to a conflict between the two statutory purposes, by virtue of the harm to cultural heritage which would result from the proposed visitor attraction at the quarry. Ms Hunt did not seek to persuade the Committee that the Sandford principle was not engaged. She did not suggest that Mr Walter, Mr Kidd and Mr Smith had misstated the Sandford principle. She did no more than to suggest that the extent of actual conflict between the two statutory purposes which would result from the development might be said to be limited, in the light of the advice and conclusions drawn by the planning officer in the Report. In so doing, Ms Hunt was properly playing her part in fulfilling the role vouchsafed to the Defendant under section 11A(1A) of the 1949 Act.

In order to assist the court as to the correct approach to take in addressing the issue raised under this ground, Mr Brett helpfully drew my attention to R(Bishop’s Stortford Civic Federation) v East Hertfordshire District Council [2014] PTSR 1035. In that case, the claimant’s argument was that the intervention of a particular member of the Defendant Council had materially misled the planning committee into granting planning permission on a false understanding of the planning history. Cranston J rejected that argument on the facts, holding that the councillor’s intervention had not influenced the committee into making its decision other than on a proper approach to the planning issues in the case before it. At [38]-[39] Cranston J referred to the line of authority which shows the court’s general reluctance to conduct a detailed forensic analysis of the discussion between members of a local authority committee which precedes the committee’s formal collective decision –

“38.

Judges have long appreciated the difficulties. In The King v London County Council [1915] 2 KB 466 the issue was whether the Council as a licensing authority of theatres and cinemas had taken into account what was said to be an irrelevant factor, namely, that the majority of the applicant company's shareholders were enemy aliens. What some councillors had said in debate was before the Court of Appeal. Buckley LJ said that he did not pay much attention to the views expressed by six members out of the whole Council in determining what was the ground upon which the Council acted: at 489. In a well-known passage Pickford LJ (later Lord Sterndale MR) said:

"With regard to the speeches of the members which have been referred to, I should imagine that probably hardly any decision of a body like the London County Council dealing with these matters could stand if every statement which a member made in debate were to be taken as a ground of the decision. I should think there are probably few debates in which someone does not suggest as a ground for decision something which is not a proper ground; and to say that, because somebody in debate has put forward an improper ground, the decision ought to be set aside as being found on that particular ground is wrong:" at 490.

39.

Simon Brown J referred to this passage with approval in R v Exeter City Council ex. p J L Thomas [1991] 1 QB 471, as did Burnett J in Scottish Widows plc v Cherwell DC [2013] EWHC 3968 (Admin), [20]. In ex p JL Thomas Simon Brown J said that since t"he planning committee in that case was taking a collective decision on the application, one had to consider the "general tenor of the discussion rather than the individual views expressed by committee members, let alone the precise terminology used": at 483H-484A. Accordingly, he did not find it helpful or necessary to refer to the details of the relevant committee meeting on 20 June 1988. In my view the same applies here”.

In the present case, the Committee had been reminded by the planning officer in paragraph 4.8 of the Report of the two statutory purposes of designation of National Parks and of the Sandford principle. In paragraphs 5.80 and 6.5 of the Report, the planning officer had advised the Committee of her conclusions on the application of the Sandford principle to the development proposed by the planning application. It is clear, from the recorded discussion at the meeting of the Committee on 1 May 2024, that its members were both well aware of the Sandford principle and correctly understood how they must proceed in order to give effect to that principle in determining the planning application. The submission that the Head of Development Management gave erroneous and misleading advice is simply wrong. Mr Smith stated the Sandford principle correctly. He gave a somewhat extreme example to illustrate its application, but the example given was nonetheless consistent with the Sandford principle as formulated in section 11A(1A) of the 1949 Act.

Ms Hunt did not question the correctness of the explanation of the Sandford principle given by the Chair, the Head of Development Management and by Mr Walter. The Claimant’s submission that Ms Hunt was stating a position on the law is incorrect. She did not need to, since she did not quarrel with the explanation of the Sandford principle already given by her colleagues. Given that she did not challenge the accuracy of the explanation of the Sandford principle given by Mr Walter, Mr Kidd and Mr Smith, the submission that she is to be taken to have asserted her position as Chair of the Defendant and her expert understanding of the Sandford principle goes nowhere: she added the weight of her authority to the explanation already given by her colleagues. Nor did she question the need to apply the Sandford principle in determining the planning application. In the light of these matters, it is fanciful to suggest that Ms Hunt’s intervention, such as it was, may have led her colleagues on the Committee into either misunderstanding or misapplying the Sandford principle when the Committee came to their collective decision. As the final part of the Committee debate indicates, the principal point of disagreement between those members who were minded to approve the planning application and those who were minded to oppose it was the efficacy of the revised Travel Plan.