Court of Appeal on Old Saved Policies

Gladman Developments Limited	Appellant
– and –
Daventry District Council -and- The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government

significant weight should be given to the general public interest in having plan-led planning decisions even if particular policies in a development plan might be old. There may still be a considerable benefit in directing decision-making according to a coherent set of plan policies, even though they are old, rather than having no coherent plan-led approach at all….

…the metaphor of a plan being “broken” is not a helpful one.

…The fact that the Council is able to show that with current saved housing policies in place it has the requisite five year supply tends to show that there is no compelling pressure by reason of unmet housing need which requires those policies to be overridden in the present case; or – to use Mr Kimblin’s metaphor – it tends positively to indicate that the current policies are not “broken” as things stand at the moment, since they can be applied in this case without jeopardising the five year housing supply objective.