Background
Greystoke CB Limited sought outline planning permission for up to 140,000 square metres of employment floorspace on agricultural land near Junction 11 of the M40 at Banbury. Cherwell District Council refused the application, citing highways, landscape, ecology, air-quality and other concerns. Greystoke appealed, but an appointed planning inspector dismissed the appeal after a nine-day inquiry.
The inspector found that the development would not cause an unacceptable highway-safety impact and that its residual cumulative effects on the road network would be significant but not “severe” under paragraph 116 of the National Planning Policy Framework. Nevertheless, he gave substantial weight to congestion because Greystoke had not demonstrated that its proposed financial contribution would provide effective mitigation. He also identified locational, landscape and heritage harms, concluding that the project’s benefits did not outweigh its adverse effects.
The Court’s Holding
Mr Justice Coppel allowed Greystoke’s statutory-review claim and quashed the inspector’s decision. Paragraph 116 is not confined to cases in which highways impacts are the sole reason for refusing permission. At a minimum, a refusal is “on highways grounds” where those impacts are the principal or main reason for refusal and the planning balance likely would have been struck differently without them. That threshold was met because highways impacts were the only harm given substantial weight and played the central role in the inspector’s reasoning.
The inspector was entitled to consider the congestion impacts and determine their weight, but he also had to treat paragraph 116 as a material consideration at the planning-balance stage. Having found neither an unacceptable safety impact nor severe residual cumulative network impacts, he erred by failing to consider the policy direction that permission should not be refused on highways grounds. The court expressed no view on Greystoke’s procedural-unfairness ground because it had become academic.
The court also held, on the basis on which the Secretary of State argued the case, that the inspector failed to include the development’s anticipated biodiversity net gain—23% for habitats and 10% for hedgerows and tree lines—in the planning balance. That ground succeeded but produced no additional relief. The inspector must reconsider the appeal lawfully, including paragraph 116 and biodiversity net gain; the court did not itself grant planning permission.
Key Takeaways
- NPPF paragraph 116 can apply when highways impacts are the principal or main reason for refusal, even if other harms also weigh against development.
- Non-severe congestion remains a relevant planning consideration, but the decision-maker must account for paragraph 116 when performing the overall planning balance.
- A biodiversity net-gain finding must be carried into the planning balance when it is treated as a material consideration, rather than merely recorded elsewhere in the decision.
Why It Matters
The judgment clarifies that decision-makers cannot avoid paragraph 116’s protective threshold merely by combining highways concerns with lesser planning harms. When highways impacts are central to refusal, the policy must be addressed expressly in the final balance, although a rationally justified departure from the NPPF remains possible.
The ruling also underscores the need for decision letters to connect findings on benefits—including biodiversity net gain—to the ultimate planning balance. The result is reconsideration by the inspector, not approval of Greystoke’s development.