High Court dismisses challenge to West Suffolk Local Plan over brownfield land register discrepancy

The High Court has dismissed a challenge to West Suffolk Council's adoption of its Local Plan, rejecting arguments that the Council should have alerted planning inspectors to an apparent inconsistency between its treatment of a development site during plan-making and its later inclusion of part of that site on the Brownfield Land Register.

In Lochailort Kentford Limited v West Suffolk Council [2026] EWHC 1870 (Admin), Mr Justice Coppel considered a statutory review under section 113 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 brought by the owner of the former Animal Health Trust site at Kentford, also known as Lanwades Park. The claimant had promoted the eastern portion of the site, around 15.92 hectares containing all 32 principal buildings, for residential and employment allocation in the emerging Local Plan. The Council did not allocate the site, concluding in its Omission Sites Report that other locations within Type A villages were more suitable and achievable options, citing constraints including a Grade II listed stable block, uncertainty over compliance with an employment safeguarding policy, and the site's position adjacent to rather than within the settlement boundary. Planning inspectors examining the plan endorsed that approach, and the Council adopted the Local Plan on 15 July 2025.

The claimant's case centred on the Council's decision, on 19 December 2024, after the inspectors' hearings had closed, to add a smaller 3.83 hectare portion of the site, comprising the existing buildings and curtilages, to Part 1 of the Brownfield Land Register. Inclusion in Part 1 requires the local authority to consider the land suitable, available and achievable for residential development. The claimant argued this amounted to an implicit acceptance that the site was suitable for housing, contradicting the Council's position during plan preparation, and that this inconsistency was an obviously material consideration which should have been drawn to the inspectors' attention, alternatively that the Council's positions were irrational or inadequately explained.

Mr Justice Coppel rejected all three grounds. He held that the Council's reasoning in the Omission Sites Report had never characterised the wider promoted site as unsuitable for development, only that other sites in Type A villages were comparatively more suitable and achievable, a judgement that was not challenged and was unaffected by the later Register entry. He further noted that the Register addition covered only the existing buildings, a fraction of the promoted site, and that the Council's established approach was not to allocate sites for housing where only part was considered suitable, a position the inspectors had expressly endorsed. The judgement also observed that the statutory definition of suitability under the Brownfield Land Register Regulations did not extend to the employment safeguarding concerns underpinning part of the Council's reasoning, and that there was no evidence the Council had considered that policy when adding the land to the register.

Even had the alleged failure to consider the register entry been unlawful, Mr Justice Coppel indicated he would have refused relief under the principle in Simplex GE Holdings Ltd v Secretary of State for the Environment, finding it inconceivable that either the inspectors or the Council would have reached a different conclusion on the site's allocation, or on the related exclusion of the site from the Kentford settlement boundary, had the register entry been drawn to their attention.

While permission for judicial review was granted on the basis that the first ground crossed the threshold of arguability, the substantive claim was dismissed in its entirety.