Openness Of The Greenbelt – Visual Impact Only One Aspect

In R (Samuel Smith Old Brewery (Tadcaster) and others) v North Yorkshire County Council [2020] UKSC 3 the Supreme Court has ruled on the approach to be taken by a decision maker when considering “openness” in the context of paragraph 90 (now addressed by paragraph 146) of the NPPF.

Greenbelt policy requires that development that is “inappropriate” (i.e. most built development) should not be approved unless “very special circumstances” can be demonstrated. This provides a higher degree of protection to land designated as green belt. Meanwhile, paragraph 90 of the NPPF provided that certain forms of development were not inappropriate in the green belt, if they preserved its “openness” and did not conflict with the purposes of designating the land as green belt. This included “mineral extraction”.

In this case:

A quarry operator was granted permission for a six-acre extension to an existing quarry within the green belt. This permission was judicially reviewed on the ground that the planning officer failed to consider the visual impact of the development when consideringopenness. The Court of Appeal agreed, and quashed the planning permission. The Supreme Court overturned the Court of Appeal and reinstated the planning permission. In doing so, it statedopenness was a broad...