AC-2025-LON-001100 - [2025] EWHC 2742 (Admin)

Fecha: 24-Oct-2025

The claim

The claim

Under the Plan, some 2,430 hectares of land is to be released from the Green Belt across Greater Manchester. GMCA’s original proposal was to add 675 hectares of land to the Green Belt, to offset harm and justify the releases. 49 additional Green Belt sites were proposed in the version of the Plan submitted to the Inspectors by GMCA and the Councils. However, at hearing sessions in March 2023, the GMCA announced it had revised its approach and assessed that 32 of the 49 additions were not justified and so it only supported 17 additions. On examination, the Inspectors decided that two further additions – GBA02 (Horwich Golf Course/Knowles Farm Bolton) and GBA29 (Cowbury Green, Long Row, Carbrook, Stalybridge) – should be added, amounting to 19 additions in total. They rejected 30 of the additions originally proposed (but no longer supported) by GMCA.

The claim, which was issued on 30 April 2024, set out 5 grounds of challenge:

Ground 1: failure to consult on main modifications proposed following the cancellation of the West Midlands to Manchester leg of the HS2 railway.

ii)

Ground 2: error of law in the interpretation of policy justifying Green Belt release in Timperley Wedge (JPA3.2).

iii)

Ground 3: legal errors in the assessment of whether exceptional circumstances exist to justify release of Green Belt land to meet housing land requirements.

iv)

Ground 4: error of law in approach to the withdrawal of Stockport MBC from the Plan.

Ground 5: unlawful restriction on the scope of exceptional circumstances.

By an order dated 8 August 2024, Eyre J. granted the Claimant permission, on the papers, to apply for statutory review on Ground 5. He considered that it was arguable that the Inspectors approached the question of Green Belt additions on the footing that there could only be exceptional circumstances if there had been a fundamental change of circumstances since the previous determination of the extent of the Green Belt. To regard such a fundamental change as the only circumstance which could be an exceptional circumstance was an error of law.

10.

Eyre J. refused permission to apply for statutory review on Grounds 1 to 4. The Claimant renewed its application on those grounds at an oral hearing before Fordham J. on 12 December 2024. Fordham J. refused permission on Grounds 1 to 4 in a reserved judgment handed down on 17 December 2024, and the order was sealed on 17 February 2025.

11.

Thus the claim proceeds solely on Ground 5, namely, that the Inspectors erred in law by narrowing the scope of “exceptional circumstances” said to be legally capable of justifying additions to the Green Belt, in response to submissions from the GMCA.

12.

The list of issues submitted by the parties read as follows:

whether the Inspectors erred in law in their approach to what was capable of constituting exceptional circumstances to justify adding sites to the Green Belt; and

ii)

if the Inspectors erred in law as above, whether this error was potentially material to the decision they reached; and if it was,

iii)

what remedy is appropriate in the circumstances?