Somerset Council has been ordered to pay the full appeal costs of Cotswold Homes Ltd and Redrow Homes Ltd after an Inspector allowed 20 homes at Great Dunns Close, Beckington.
The Beckington appeal costs decision is more useful than another housing-appeal result. Inspector Philip Major accepted that elected members are entitled to disagree with professional officers, but found that disagreement still needed a defensible evidential basis. The Council’s heritage, drainage and development-scale objections were not sufficiently substantiated.
The appeal, APP/E3335/W/25/3375062, was allowed on 18th September 2026. A separate decision made a full award of costs against Somerset Council. Appeal decision | Costs decision
Members can disagree with officers, but evidence still matters
The application, Somerset reference 2024/1865/FUL, proposed 20 homes with highway access, public open space, landscaping, a sewage pumping station and other works. The development plan included the Mendip Local Plan Parts I and II, with Policies CP1, CP2, DP3, DP8 and DP9 particularly relevant.
In the costs decision the Inspector was explicit that a planning committee is entitled to disagree with officers. A different view is not unreasonable merely because professional advice points the other way. But the Inspector added an important qualification: such a position needs to be backed by clear evidence.
That evidential gap ran through the Council’s case. On heritage, the committee had departed from its conservation officer and from findings in an earlier appeal without producing expert evidence capable of substantiating the contrary conclusion. On the wider objection to the scale and location of development, the Inspector described the Council’s case as unclear and lacking objective analysis.
The result was unusually severe. The Inspector concluded that development had been prevented which should clearly have been permitted and made a full costs award. That is a useful worked example for our guide to awards of costs in planning appeals.
Heritage harm was real, but limited
The appeal site affects the settings of listed buildings and Beckington Conservation Area. The Inspector agreed that there would be harm, but found it minor. He nevertheless gave that harm the considerable importance and weight required by national heritage policy.
The planning balance was not therefore based on saying that there was no heritage issue. The benefits of market and affordable housing, public open space and economic activity were weighed against the identified harm. The section 106 obligation secured six affordable homes, five for social rent, and that benefit attracted significant weight.
The Inspector concluded that the public benefits clearly outweighed the limited heritage harm and that Local Plan Policy DP3 was satisfied.
A specific foul-drainage solution changed the position
Local concern also focused on foul drainage and the designated river bathing water at Farleigh Hungerford. Wessex Water was satisfied that the additional flows could be handled at Beckington Water Recycling Centre, subject to the proposed arrangements.
The agreed condition was unusually specific. Foul water would be pumped northwards through a route avoiding the village centre. During combined sewer overflow events at Beckington, on-site storage would be provided for up to 24 hours of flow until the treatment works upgrade is completed.
The Inspector did not find, on the balance of probabilities, that poor bathing-water quality was shown to be caused by discharges from the Beckington and Rode works. Other potential contaminant sources existed. With the condition in place, he found no reason to withhold permission on this issue.
That distinction is important. The decision does not say sewage infrastructure concerns are immaterial. It says the particular refusal reason could not stand once the statutory undertaker accepted the connection and a workable mitigation condition had been agreed.
Why the Beckington appeal costs decision matters
Planning Geek’s reading is that the costs decision is the more important of the two documents for practitioners. Committees remain free to exercise planning judgement and to disagree with officers. What they cannot safely do is turn concern into a refusal reason without evidence capable of defending that reason at appeal.
The point is not that officer recommendations must be followed. It is that refusal reasons need to be precise, internally coherent and supported by objective planning evidence, particularly where they contradict specialist advice already before the authority.
The appeal decision and costs decision should therefore be read together. The former explains why permission was granted; the latter explains why Somerset’s conduct crossed the separate threshold for an award of costs.
Report published: 19th September 2026
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