Background
Lewisham’s Strategic Planning Committee resolved in November 2024 to approve redevelopment of Scott House in Deptford. The proposal involved partial façade retention and construction of a 31-storey building containing 502 purpose-built student-accommodation units, including 176 affordable units, as well as commercial and office space. The existing building contained 19 live/work units used as conventional homes, none of which would be retained.
Before planning permission was issued in October 2025, Lewisham adopted a new local plan. Policy HO7 required proposed student accommodation to be secured for students through an agreement with one or more specific higher-education providers. The completed section 106 agreement instead required reasonable endeavours to obtain a nominations agreement and permitted direct letting to students if those endeavours failed. During the delay between the committee resolution and permission, the developer also served eviction notices on Scott House tenants despite a proposed section 106 obligation requiring relocation assistance.
Kenneth Thomas sought judicial review, arguing that the student-housing obligations did not secure compliance with the newly adopted policy and that Lewisham acted irrationally or ignored material circumstances concerning the tenants’ eviction and the relocation obligations.
The Court’s Holding
The High Court allowed the claim and quashed the planning permission. Policy HO7 required an agreement connecting the accommodation with one or more specific higher-education providers. The section 106 provisions did not secure that result: they allowed the development to proceed and the rooms to be let directly if reasonable efforts to obtain a nominations agreement proved unsuccessful. Restricting occupation generally to students was not equivalent to securing the accommodation through the agreement required by the local policy.
The policy had become part of the statutory development plan before permission was issued and therefore had to be addressed under section 38(6) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. The earlier committee assessment, undertaken while the policy remained in draft, did not amount to a lawful determination under the subsequently adopted plan. The planning obligation could not cure the deficiency because it did not secure the policy-compliant development on which the council’s decision depended.
The court did not accept that the developer’s pre-permission conduct made the relocation obligations legally unenforceable or that Lewisham’s treatment of the eviction issue supplied an additional basis for quashing the permission. The decisive unlawfulness concerned the failure to determine the application properly under the student-housing policy in force when permission was granted.
Key Takeaways
- A planning authority must apply the development plan in force when it issues permission, even if its committee resolved to approve the application under an earlier plan.
- An obligation merely requiring reasonable endeavours to obtain a nominations agreement does not satisfy a local policy requiring accommodation to be secured through an agreement with a specific higher-education provider when unrestricted fallback letting remains available.
- Changes occurring between a committee resolution and the eventual grant of permission may require renewed officer or committee consideration, particularly when a newly adopted policy is materially different.
Why It Matters
The judgment underscores the legal risk created by long delays between a planning committee’s resolution and the formal issue of permission. Authorities must check whether an intervening development plan changes the governing policy and must conduct a fresh, legally adequate assessment where it does.
For purpose-built student housing, the decision also distinguishes a general student-only occupancy restriction from a policy requirement tying rooms to identified higher-education institutions. Developers and authorities cannot rely on flexible fallback provisions where the applicable local plan demands that institutional connection.