Challenge to Legoland Holiday Villages, Windsor

This was a challenge to the Royal Borough’s decision to grant planning permission to Legoland to construct “holiday villages” and a car park in the green belt adjacent to Legoland theme park, Windsor. The grounds of claim related to harm to ancient and veteran trees and the potential effects on the adjacent Windsor Forest and Great Park Special Area of Conservation.

The Claim was brought on behalf of the Berkshire branch of Campaign for the Protection of Rural England. (Mr Hudson was chair of the Board of CPRE-Berkshire at time the case was lodged and brought the claim on the organisation’s behalf.) The challenge raised a number of grounds, including (1) that inadequate reasons were given in relation to potential harm to veteran and ancient trees on the site in circumstances where the Council’s professional tree officer’s advice was that such harm would occur; (2) that there had been an unlawful failure to refer the matter back to the Council’s planning committee after national policy protections for veteran trees had been strengthened, and (3) that there had been no “appropriate assessment” as required by the Habitats Regulations in relation to the potential harm to the adjacent ancient woodland, Windsor Forest and Great Park SAC.

The claim was granted permission but then dismissed in the High Court; the Judge found that the reasons given had been adequate and could be gleaned from a combination of the transcript of the Council’s planning committee meeting and the minutes; that the conclusion had been that no harm would occur to the trees, and therefore there had been no need to have regard to the strengthened policy; and that whilst there had been an unlawful failure to conduct an appropriate assessment, the Judge considered it was highly likely that the outcome would not have been different if one had been conducted; in particular she found that Natural England was satisfied with the proposals and “must have been aware” that the proposed buffer adjacent to the ancient woodland was 15m (whereas the Claimant had argued that Natural England appeared to think that a 20m buffer was necessary). The Judge therefore refused to grant any relief.

After the Claimant had applied for permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal, the Defendant Council disclosed that it had located further correspondence from Natural England which had not been identified when it had searched its files initially. This clearly showed that Natural England expected a 20m buffer to the ancient woodland to be maintained at all times. In October 2020, a Lady Justice of Appeal granted permission on all five grounds of appeal. The appeal was eventually dismissed by the Court of Appeal, though in doing so, the Court held that the correct interpretation of the permission was that it did, in fact, impose a 20 metre buffer zone to the ancient woodland at all times.

An application for permission to appeal was made to the Supreme Court on two important points of principle, namely:

1. Whether the Court of Appeal’s treatment of the Appellant’s reasons challenge erred in law by holding that the reasons required did not relate to the Panel’s resolution to grant permission, but to the later Decision Notice implementing this resolution, and was therefore contrary to the House of Lords’ decision in the Burkett case
2. Whether the reasons identified by the Court of Appeal met the legal standard set out in relevant Supreme Court authority in circumstances where they did not give any reasons why the harm to veteran trees would be avoided

Permission to appeal was refused by a brief order providing no rationale in December 2021.