The Court of Appeal has ruled that Leeds City Council did not act unlawfully when it put a neighbourhood plan to a referendum after modifications had been made that partly differed from those recommended by the examiner.

Kebbell Developments had challenged the council’s decision to allow the Linton Neighbourhood Plan to proceed to a referendum. Kebbell had applied to the Council for planning permission to build 26 homes on a 4.5 hectares site called The Ridge but the site would be designated as unsuitable for development in the Neighbourhood Plan.

When the case first was considered in the High Court, Kerr J concluded that the Council had not dealt with the examiner’s recommendations unlawfully. Kebbell appealed to the Court of Appeal on this ground and also for failing to give sufficient reasons for its modifications. 

Giving the lead judgment, Lindblom LJ said that the modification was one the council was able to make in exercising its statutory powers.

40.       … The modification was comfortably within the ambit of the local planning authority’s statutory power to modify a neighbourhood plan before putting it to a referendum … The city council was entitled to conclude that the modification was effective both in securing compliance with the ‘basic conditions’ and in achieving internal consistency in the neighbourhood plan. There was no breach of the statutory procedure.

On the issue of reasons, Linblom LJ said

45.       I do not accept that … the city council’s reason, succinct as they were, can be regarded as unclear or inadequate.