I have been involved in this case for nearly 3 years now on behalf of CPRESussex. It is a particularly shocking decision - and out of kilter with other more favourable ones by the Secretary of State involving Mid Sussex. The two things that are particularly disturbing about the Sec of State's decision letter are
- his bland acceptance that all Mid Sussex's adopted neighbourhood plans, ones on which local communities have co-operated in good faith so long and hard - are necessarily out of date from the moment of their adoption because Mid Sussex lacks a current District Plan. What was the point of all this effort if they are redundant from day 1, and how can this be reconciled with pushing power down to local people?
- secondly, the fact that the Secretary of State has applied the wrong test in weighing up the pros and cons of the planning proposal. Having accepted, as he does at para 11, that the development will cause some harm to the setting of a Grade II listed building called Sunte House, he is not required by NPPF para 14 to apply the test there that planning permission should only be refused if the adverse impacts significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits - which is the test that he has applied - see paras 20/21 of his decision. Instead, the NPPF and recent court decisions required him to conducted a straightforward unloaded balancing assessment and given great weight to the inspector's finding that the development would cause harm to the setting of Sunte House.
We end up with a decision that is inexplicably incompatible with other recent decisions involving Mid Sussex where the Sec of State gave primacy to adopted neighbourhood plans with which the planning application was incompatible. Perhaps a depressing indication of a tougher approach under the new Government regime?