[2025] UKUT 312 (LC)

In its form in force at the valuation date, the local planning authority was directed by section 17(5) to include in its certificate “every description of development (whether specified in the application or not)” which it considered would have obtained planning permission. On appeal, the Tribunal is directed by section 18(2)(a) to consider the matters to which the certificate relates as if the application under section 17 had been made to it in the first place. Where the Tribunal cancels a certificate, section 18(2)(b) provides that it must issue a different certificate in its place, “as the Upper Tribunal may consider appropriate”. We do not interpret these directions as imposing on the Tribunal the same duty as is imposed on the local planning authority to certify “every description” of development for which planning permission would be granted. Our task is necessarily a narrower one. Unlike the local planning authority, the Tribunal’s function is judicial; it is to resolve a dispute, the terms of which are set by the parties. Our task is to consider development which has been proposed by the parties. We must base our determination on evidence, so the extent to which we can modify the parties’ proposals is limited. Unlike a planning application, or even an application for a certificate under section 17, an appeal under section 18 is not an iterative process. If we conclude that the development proposed by an appellant is inconsistent with policy in some respect, we cannot invite the appellant to think again. Our ability to redesign the appellant’s scheme and to issue a different certificate describing a lesser form of development is constrained by the evidence we have received (see Pro Investments v Hounslow LBC [2019] UKUT 319 (LC), at [126], and Nofax Station Road Ltd v Barnet LBC [2025] UKUT 241 (LC), at [46] and [52]).