In another important planning law judgement for Scotland in
October 2006 the House of Lords dealt with the challenge to the
Ravenscraig generation initiative in their Judgement in the case
Land Securities Group plc v The Scottish Ministers. Notable not
only for a passing comparison by a Lord Rodger of Earlsferry
between the Ravenscraig site and Monaco, the case lifts a legal
impediment to a massive new development project centred on a new
Town Centre in the Ravenscraig area, North Lanarkshire.
The proposals for Ravenscraig include about 3,500 new houses,
57,600 square metres gross of retail floor space, offices and other
services, food and drink, major regional leisure facilities, a
hotel, residential and community facilities.
The case was a challenge to the decision of the Scottish
Ministers to approve an alteration to the Glasgow and the Clyde
Valley Structure Plan which specifically provided for a major new
town centre and related development at and around Ravenscraig. The
challengers argued that it was irrational of the Ministers to have
approved the Structure Plan alteration, because it was contrary to
the Ministers existing policy on town centres in NPPG8 that no
approval should be given to out of centre retailing without careful
consideration of any impact it might have on the established town
centres. It was argued that the sequential approach which directs
all new development to existing town centres first should have been
expressly followed by the Ministers in considering the alteration.
The challengers were the proprietors and investors in a number of
town centres which would expect to be adversely affected through
loss of retailing expenditure to the new Ravenscraig retailing
centre.
In considering the Structure Plan alteration the Scottish
Ministers had said that in their view NPPG8, with its requirement
for a sequential approach, and the consideration of impact on the
existing town centres was "not directly applicable to the creation
of a new town centre". The Judges found that the critical question
was whether the Scottish Ministers had to follow the sequential
approach in NPPG8 when considering whether to approve the Structure
Plan alteration. The Judges found that even on the assumption that
NPPG did apply, it did not necessarily follow that Ministers were
absolutely bound to apply the sequential approach in NPPG8 if it
was not actually suited to or operable in the exercise in which
they were engaged, in considering the alteration to the Glasgow and
the Clyde Valley Structure Plan. Their Lordships found that there
were important differences between NPPG8 and the retail policy
framework to which it was intended to apply, and what was actually
proposed at Ravenscraig. Ravenscraig was a many faceted
development, furnishing an opportunity to create a more coherent
urban structure, a sense of place and the quality of life within
Lanarkshire and to deliver major land renewal. The town Centre was
just one element, even though important. The designation of a new
town centre at Ravenscraig was one part of a unitary concept which
proceeded on a number of wide ranging planning judgements.
Even if the retailing question had been crucial, and essentially
relevant to the questions before them in considering the
alteration, the Ministers could still have considered their own
policy in NPPG8, and then decided not to follow it, although they
would have had to have given their reasons for so doing. However,
because of the nature of the Ravenscraig initiative, its scope and
its complexity, the challengers argument was unrealistic since a
sequential approach cannot be sensibly applied to the development
of the new settlement centred around a town centre at Ravenscraig.
In effect, the sequential approach could never have been applied to
the Ravenscraig initiative and was accordingly not relevant in the
first place, and the Ministers were fully justified in taking the
view that the sequential approach was not operable. In an important
codicil, their Lordships endorsed the appropriateness of adding a
Ravenscraig town centre to the policy in the Structure Plan which
is designed to protect town centres, even though the town centre,
as such, does not yet exist. The Structure Plan is entitled to
include the Ravenscraig proposal in a policy designed to promote
investment and protect the viability of what is intended to be a
town centre at the heart of a development of national
significance.