High Court rejects challenge to decision by council to give planning permission to developer for new slip road

Her Honour Judge Karen Walden-Smith, sitting as a judge of the High Court, heard that developer Barratt David Wilson Homes Kent had gained planning consent from Canterbury to build an eastbound slip road from the A2 and modify a footpath and cycle route at the Wincheap Park-and-Ride site.

Local resident Camilla Swire argued the slip road would result in an inevitable loss of parking capacity at Wincheap, and said Canterbury was obliged under the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Regulations to assess the environmental impact of the development, particularly any impacts on traffic and air quality.

Swire said Canterbury unlawfully failed to consider the effects of the slip road development on the park-and-ride and the effects of the expansion of the site as an indirect effect of the slip road development and any consequent highways or environmental effects.

Canterbury countered that both it - and Kent County Council as highways authority - acted rationally and made reasonable decisions  because the facility would later expand to re-provide the parking spaces lost to the slip road, and the traffic impacts of any temporary reduction would not lead to significant effects on the environment. Barratt agreed with the council’s stance.

Both Canterbury and Barratt relied on the ‘backstop' provided by section 278 of the Highways Act 1980 so that Canterbury was entitled rationally to conclude that Kent and/or National Highways would not enter into the necessary section 278 agreements for the slip road development unless they were satisfied that there would not be any unacceptable adverse impacts on the road networks.

Under planning permission granted in 2016 Barratt can build 750 homes but only 449 may be occupied before the slip road is built.

HHJ Walden-Smith said in her judgment: “It was entirely rational for the [Canterbury] planning committee to conclude, on the basis of the information available, that the loss of spaces at the P&R would be mitigated while also saying that this was not a development that required a full EIA.”

It was not irrational for committee members not to require further information about what precise form the park-and-ride expansion would take in circumstances when Kent had not raised concerns and was satisfied by the information provided for the developer.

The judge also found Canterbury “reached entirely rational determinations” in deciding the slip road did not require a full EIA as its length was considerably below that where an EIA is needed.

Mark Smulian