Town & country planning

The exercise in accordance with s 38(6) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 required the secretary of state to balance the competing tensions of national, regional and local planning policies, that was to say the need to deliver land for housing, for example RS and PPS3, against the restriction of development in the countryside, for example, FBLP.

It was established law that the weight to be given to any particular material consideration and the making of a planning judgment was a matter for the decision maker not for the court. The reasons given for a planning decision had to be capable of being understood by the reader but ought to be treated with a degree of flexibility.