City & Country Bramshill Ltd v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government & Ors [2021] EWCA Civ 320
City & Country Bramshill is an important Court of Appeal judgment on two quite different planning issues: the meaning of isolated homes in the countryside and the way heritage harm and heritage benefits can be balanced. The court upheld an Inspector’s dismissal of major housing proposals at the former Bramshill police training college in Hampshire.
Important legal note: Planning Geek is a planning consultancy, not a law firm. This page provides general planning information and is not legal advice. Case law must be read in its factual and legal context and may be affected by later judgments, legislation or policy. Where the original judgment is available, it remains the authoritative source. If the outcome matters to a live case or dispute, take advice from an appropriately qualified planning solicitor or barrister.
Copyright and licensing: Crown copyright and other rights in judgments and source material remain with the relevant rights holders. Where a judgment is reproduced from Find Case Law, it is used under the Open Justice Licence and the source should be acknowledged. Material obtained from other sources is reproduced only where the applicable terms permit it. Planning Geek does not claim copyright in the text of court judgments.
- Neutral citation
- [2021] EWCA Civ 320; [2021] 1 WLR 5761
- Court
- Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
- Judgment date
- 9th March 2021
- Judge
- Sir Keith Lindblom, Lord Justice Phillips and Lord Justice Arnold
- Case number
- C1/2020/0160
Need help with a planning application?
Planning Geek isn’t just a reference site - preparing and submitting planning applications is what we do. If you’d like a hand with an application, an appeal or any other planning matter, we’d be glad to help.
What City & Country Bramshill decided
Bramshill Park extends to about 106 hectares and contains a Grade I listed Jacobean mansion, other listed buildings and a Grade I registered park and garden. It had previously been used as a national and international police training college.
A large group of planning and enforcement appeals proposed different residential and commercial futures for the estate, including hundreds of new homes, conversion of the mansion and retention of existing residential units.
The Inspector allowed some appeals but dismissed the major new housing schemes. The Court of Appeal upheld her approach on the issues before it.
Isolated means isolated from a settlement
The Court of Appeal reaffirmed its earlier interpretation of the national policy against isolated homes in the countryside. The relevant question is whether the proposed housing would be physically isolated from a settlement.
It is not enough to point to another dwelling, a cluster of unrelated buildings or existing development on the same large site and say that the new homes would therefore not be isolated.
Whether a particular group of buildings constitutes a settlement is a matter of fact and planning judgment for the decision-maker.
A large housing scheme can still be isolated housing
The developer argued that proposals for hundreds of homes could not sensibly be described as isolated homes because the dwellings would not be isolated from each other.
The Court of Appeal rejected that approach. The policy is concerned with the relationship between housing and existing settlements, not simply the distance between one proposed house and another.
Otherwise a developer could avoid the policy by proposing two or more houses together in an otherwise remote countryside location.
Previously developed land does not automatically answer the isolation question
The Bramshill estate contained extensive existing buildings and previously developed land. That did not automatically transform it into a settlement.
The Inspector was entitled to describe the site as a discrete group of buildings formerly used for a particular institutional purpose, remote from settlements and surrounded by open countryside.
The legal question under the isolation policy remained a matter of planning judgment on those facts.
Sustainability was a separate and wider planning judgment
The Inspector also considered access to services, public transport, walking and cycling, travel patterns and the existing fallback use of the site.
The Court of Appeal held that she had not ignored the fallback position. She had considered it but was entitled to conclude that the site was inherently unsustainable as a location for major new housing because of its remoteness from settlements and the lack of genuine alternative transport choices.
For the current policy context, see our guide to isolated homes in the countryside. The NPPF wording and paragraph numbering have changed since the version considered in Bramshill, so the current policy should always be checked alongside the case.
There is no mandatory Palmer internal heritage balance
The second major issue concerned heritage. City & Country Bramshill argued that the Inspector was legally required first to balance heritage harm against heritage benefits in a self-contained internal exercise. Only if net heritage harm remained, it said, should that residual harm be weighed against other public benefits.
The Court of Appeal rejected that proposed rule.
Palmer v Herefordshire Council had not created a universal legal principle requiring one particular sequence of heritage calculations. Palmer involved mitigation that avoided the apprehended harm. It did not dictate the method to be used in every case involving separate heritage benefits and harms.
Different lawful heritage balancing methods are possible
Section 66(1) requires special regard to the desirability of preserving a listed building or its setting, and the heritage authorities require appropriate importance and weight to be given to that objective.
But the statute does not prescribe one universal arithmetic method for balancing harm and benefit.
A decision-maker may in one case find that mitigation avoids harm altogether. In another, there may be residual harm to one asset but benefits to that or other heritage assets. Those benefits can then form part of the public-benefit side of the balance.
What matters is that every material element is lawfully identified and given appropriate weight.
Heritage benefits can be public benefits
The Court of Appeal confirmed that public benefits in national heritage policy can include heritage benefits themselves.
Removing harmful modern buildings, restoring a registered park or garden, repairing listed structures or improving public access can all potentially count in favour of a proposal. Their weight remains a matter of planning judgment.
There is no need to force every heritage benefit into a preliminary internal calculation before the wider planning balance is carried out.
The Inspector’s approach was lawful
The Inspector first identified the significance of the heritage assets, then assessed the harm from each proposal, and then considered whether that harm was outweighed by the public benefits associated with the individual proposal or other linked proposals.
The Court of Appeal held that this was a legally impeccable method. Another decision-maker might lawfully structure the analysis differently.
Read the full City & Country Bramshill judgment
The approved Court of Appeal judgment is held in the Planning Geek case law library. Gold Members can open the protected PDF below.
Related Planning Geek guidance
See isolated homes in the countryside, listed buildings and our guide to the setting of a heritage asset.
City & Country Bramshill Case Law Page Updated: 9th September 2026