Company seeking to develop derelict land near Paisley loses appeal against refusal of approval for housing

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2025] CSIH 17
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  Court of Session Inner House
• Judge:
  Lord Pentland

J29 (Scotland) Ltd sought to construct a multi-use development comprising housing, business facilities and other industrial facilities, but was refused approval by Renfrewshire Council in respect of matters related to meeting suspensive conditions in their planning permission in principle. After the reporter for the Scottish Ministers upheld the council’s decision, the appellants went to the Court of Session.

The appeal was heard by the Lord President, Lord Pentland, with Lord Doherty and Lord Clark. N McLean, solicitor advocate, appeared for the appellant and A Sutherland, advocate, for the respondents.

Strategic road link

On 19 March 2019, Renfrewshire Council granted the appellant’s application for planning permission in principle or a multi-use development near Junction 29 of the M8 motorway, to the south of the St James Interchange near Burnside Place, Paisley. The site comprised overgrown vacant land which was formerly part of a masterplan for development of the area that remained undeveloped due to economic constraints. The PPiP was granted subject to a number of suspensive conditions that required to be complied with before development commenced.

On 10 August 2022 the appellant applied to the Council for approval of matters specified in certain of the conditions (‘the AMSC’), essentially to construct housing and an access road on part of the site.  The Council refused the AMSC on 21 March 2024, on the basis that the proposed development did not provide suitable integration and connectivity with the surrounding area, due to its reliance on a single access point.

The reporter for the respondent concurred that without a strategic road link to the north of the development, the residential part would be a cul-de-sac which failed to comply with national policy. The appellant’s proposal would prevent the approach in the approved Indicative Masterplan from being realised, and no alternative scheme had been submitted to convince the reporter that the proposal would not compromise development of the wider area.

For the appellant it was submitted that the reporter erred in concluding that the PPiP required there to be a through road. The residential phase was merely the first phase of a wider development and did not preclude future proposals for pedestrian and road connectivity. The requirement for a strategic link was not a condition of the PPiP nor was it delineated in the Masterplan. If, as the respondents contended, he did not make such a conclusion, his reasons were inadequately expressed.

Exercise of judgement

Lord Pentland, delivering the opinion of the court, said of the scope of the appeal: “The court is concerned only with the legality of decisions made by a reporter and not with their merits or, in particular, with a planning judgement exercised by him. Such an exercise of judgement falls wholly within the reporter’s sphere of discretionary decision-making and can only be challenged on the ground that it is irrational or perverse.”

He continued: “Applying these principles to the circumstances of the present case, the reporter’s decision is not vitiated by any material error in law. While it is possible to read some of the earlier references in the decision as perhaps suggesting that the Masterplan was incorporated in the PPiP to a greater extent than specified, the reporter did not in his final analysis determine the appeal on the basis of any such misunderstanding. Instead he reached his conclusion on the basis of an exercise of planning judgement, in which he took account of all the relevant considerations.”

Explaining how the court had reached that conclusion, Lord Pentland said: “The fact that the reporter ultimately determined the appeal in the exercise of his planning judgement is clear from paragraph 19 of his decision where he stated that ‘regardless of the status’ of the Masterplan he considered that any proposal to develop an element of land which had been awarded planning permission in principle must not compromise the future delivery of the wider development area. The reporter then went on to consider the effect of the nearby St Mirren football stadium and the levels of traffic likely to be generated on match days.”

He concluded: “At the end of the day, the court considers that the reporter was entitled to come to the conclusion, in the exercise of his planning judgement, that the layout of the proposed residential development was unacceptable, having regard to the vision for the development and the overall strategy extending to the wider area, all as reflected in the PPiP. He correctly identified the determining issues and adequately explained his reasons for reaching his conclusion. His reasons were intelligible and such as to enable the reader to understand why matters were determined as they were.”

The appeal was therefore refused.