The Tenant Farmers Association (TFA) has challenged the Planning Inspectorate in England to improve the understanding of its Inspectors about agricultural tenancies when they are handling planning appeals.

It follows a decision made by a Planning Inspector in respect of a planning appeal from a developer which was refused consent for a solar farm on land in Williton in Somerset. The decision to refuse consent was made by Somerset Council partly due to the impact of the development on the personal circumstances and the business of the tenant farmer who was not a party to the application and which the local planning authority considered was “significant”.

The decision of the local planning authority was informed by case law. This directs those determining planning applications to treat any negative impact on the personal circumstances of the occupier of land who is not involved in the development as a material consideration during the consideration of the application.

TFA Chief Executive, George Dunn, said “This is a case where Somerset Council got it right and the Planning Inspector got it badly wrong. In fact, the decision of the Planning Inspector was so wrong it could be dubbed a schoolboy error”.

In his appeal decision, the Inspector outlines his consideration of the objection to the development proposal, which was based on the occupier of the site being a tenant farmer. He agrees that the impact on the personal circumstances of the tenant farmer is a material consideration. He also notes the objection tabled by the TFA highlighting that should the development go ahead, the tenant farmer would face a notice to quit of the tenanted land they occupy which had been earmarked for the development and which would have had a severely negative impact on the tenant.

“Having taken that objection,including the point about the notice to quit into consideration, bizarrely the Inspector then finds that the tenant farmer could instead continue to use the land for grazing and downplays the significance of the impact on the tenant farmer. However, if the tenant farmer no longer has access to the land how can he continue to graze it? The Inspector is either guilty of not understanding the basis of a notice to quit or failing to take that into consideration at all. Either way, it is a very serious error which undermines confidence in the role of the Planning Inspectorate,” said Mr Dunn.

The TFA complained to the Planning Inspectorate about this decision. However, the TFA was told that as a legally binding decision there was nothing that could be done and that the tenant farmer should have applied for a Judicial Review of the decision if they believed it had not been properly decided.

“Whilst I understand the legal basis upon which the decision was made and that any objector has the right to seek a Judicial Review, financially, emotionally, practically and legally the bar is very high for an individual to take such a step. Access to justice is not easily achievable. As citizens, we rely upon the systems which operate to protect us to do so in a fair, even-handed intelligent, and informed way. It is my considered view that in this case the planning system has failed,and corrective action should be taken by the Planning Inspectorate to ensure that this does not happen again. Planning Inspectors should receive urgent training on how to handle these types of issues in the future,” said Mr Dunn.