Council failed to properly account for an inspector’s findings on an earlier scheme.
The High Court has quashed a planning permission granted by the London Borough of Hounslow after finding that councillors were materially misled about an earlier scheme for the same site.
In The Old Chiswick Protection Society v London Borough of Hounslow [2026] EWHC 2278 (Admin), HHJ Emma Kelly found that the council’s officer’s report gave an inaccurate account of an existing planning permission and failed to explain that a Planning Inspector had reached different conclusions about the scheme’s design and living conditions.
The dispute concerned a site at 1 Burlington Lane, Chiswick, occupied by a vacant five-storey office building within the Chiswick House Conservation Area. An earlier appeal had resulted in permission for a 104-home scheme, known as the Fallback Scheme. The Inspector had concluded that its residents’ living conditions would be acceptable and that its design would enhance the area.
A later application proposed a larger development comprising 132 flats, commercial space and associated public realm and landscaping works. Hounslow’s planning committee approved that proposal in August 2025.
The council’s officer’s report treated the Fallback Scheme as an important material consideration but described it as providing poor-quality accommodation and poor design. The report did not tell councillors that those assessments conflicted with the earlier Inspector’s conclusions. The High Court held that this brought the consistency principle into play.
That principle means that previous planning decisions can be material considerations, particularly where a later decision-maker is considering a critical issue addressed by an earlier decision. A decision-maker may disagree with an earlier decision, but must have regard to it and give reasons for departing from it where the principle applies.
The court found that the officer’s report materially misled the committee. It did not explain the Inspector’s conclusions on design and living conditions, identify the disagreement between the Inspector and council officers, or give reasons for taking a different view.
The court also rejected the argument that the error was corrected during the committee meeting. Although the claimant’s representative, Mr Harris KC, highlighted the Inspector’s conclusions, the judge found that his comments did not address the design issue or provide the Inspector’s reasoning. The council’s subsequent legal advice also failed to tell the committee that it needed to consider the basis of the Inspector’s decision.
The court concluded that both limbs of the claimant’s ground were made out. The committee had failed to have regard to the Inspector’s reasons and could not properly explain its departure from those conclusions.
The council also failed to overcome the statutory “highly likely” test under section 31(2A) of the Senior Courts Act 1981. The judge found that the inaccurate assessment of the Fallback Scheme went to the heart of the planning balance because that scheme had been given significant weight.
The claim therefore succeeded and the planning decision was quashed.