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

The principles upon which the court acts when faced with an allegation that a planning committee has been misled by advice provided by officers are both well settled and well known. They are summarised by Lindblom LJ in R (Mansell) v Tonbridge and Malling BC [2019] PTSR 1452 at [42] (omitting some cross references to other cases) -

“The principles on which the court will act when criticism is made of a planning officer's report to committee are well settled. To summarize the law as it stands:

(1)

The essential principles are as stated by the Court of Appeal in R. v Selby District Council, ex parte Oxton Farms [1997] EGCS 60 (see, in particular, the judgment of Judge L.J., as he then was). They have since been confirmed several times by this court, notably by Sullivan L.J. in R. (on the application of Siraj) v Kirklees Metropolitan Borough Council [2010] EWCA Civ 1286, at paragraph 19, and applied in many cases at first instance ….

(2)

The principles are not complicated. Planning officers' reports to committee are not to be read with undue rigour, but with reasonable benevolence, and bearing in mind that they are written for councillors with local knowledge …. Unless there is evidence to suggest otherwise, it may reasonably be assumed that, if the members followed the officer's recommendation, they did so on the basis of the advice that he or she gave …. The question for the court will always be whether, on a fair reading of the report as a whole, the officer has materially misled the members on a matter bearing upon their decision, and the error has gone uncorrected before the decision was made. Minor or inconsequential errors may be excused. It is only if the advice in the officer's report is such as to misdirect the members in a material way – so that, but for the flawed advice it was given, the committee's decision would or might have been different – that the court will be able to conclude that the decision itself was rendered unlawful by that advice.

(3)

Where the line is drawn between an officer's advice that is significantly or seriously misleading – misleading in a material way – and advice that is misleading but not significantly so will always depend on the context and circumstances in which the advice was given, and on the possible consequences of it. There will be cases in which a planning officer has inadvertently led a committee astray by making some significant error of fact …, or has plainly misdirected the members as to the meaning of a relevant policy …. There will be others where the officer has simply failed to deal with a matter on which the committee ought to receive explicit advice if the local planning authority is to be seen to have performed its decision-making duties in accordance with the law …. But unless there is some distinct and material defect in the officer's advice, the court will not interfere”.