The Court of Appeal has ruled that ministers must abide by a published Government policy and give reasons for call-in decisions on planning applications. This includes planning applications that were not called in – like the highly controversial Paddington Cube.
SAVE [Alliance member] successfully argued that under existing policy, announced in the House of Commons in 2001 and restated in 2010, ministers are obliged to give reasons when they decline to call in planning applications. This policy was overlooked by civil servants and ministers since 2014 without apparent explanation. It means that the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government must now follow his own published advice and give reasons for his decisions.