C G Fry & Son Limited v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government and another [2025] UKSC 35

CG Fry is a major Supreme Court judgment on Habitats Regulations assessment, nutrient impacts and the legal effect of outline planning permission. It answers two different questions, and keeping them separate is important. The court confirmed that a Habitats Regulations assessment can be required at a later stage of a multi-stage planning process where the Regulations themselves apply. But it also held that national planning policy cannot be used to rewrite the legal scope of an outline permission that has already been granted.

Neutral citation

[2025] UKSC 35

Court

Supreme Court of the United Kingdom

Judgment date

22nd October 2025

Judge

Lord Reed, Lord Sales, Lord Hamblen, Lord Stephens and Lady Simler

Case number

UKSC/2024/0108

What happened at Jurston Farm

C G Fry had outline planning permission for a mixed-use development at Jurston Farm near Wellington in Somerset, including up to 650 homes. Reserved matters approval for a phase of 190 homes followed in 2020 and was subject to further conditions.

Later in 2020, Natural England issued new scientific advice about phosphate loading affecting the Somerset Levels and Moors Ramsar site. When the developer subsequently sought to discharge conditions attached to the reserved matters approval, the council withheld approval because it considered that an assessment of the nutrient effects was required.

The dispute eventually reached the Supreme Court.

Habitats Regulations assessment can take place at a later stage

The first issue concerned the Habitats Regulations Assessment regime. The Supreme Court held that regulation 63 of the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 is broad enough to apply at a later authorisation stage in a multi-stage planning process.

That can include a decision on reserved matters or the discharge of conditions where the decision would authorise the project to proceed. The protective purpose of the Habitats Regulations and the precautionary principle would be undermined if an assessment could never be undertaken later simply because it had not been done when outline permission was granted.

The court therefore dismissed CG Fry’s appeal on this first issue.

Ramsar sites were different in this case

The Somerset Levels and Moors site at the centre of the case is a Ramsar site. Ramsar sites are protected through national planning policy, but they are not themselves European sites to which the Habitats Regulations directly apply.

That distinction became critical. National policy can plainly be a material consideration when a planning authority is deciding whether to grant planning permission. But policy does not have the same legal force as legislation.

Our separate guide explains the current planning protection for Ramsar sites.

Outline planning permission creates legal rights

The Supreme Court held that the grant of planning permission creates legal rights for the developer to carry out the development in accordance with that permission. That applies to outline planning permission as well as full permission, subject to the conditions and reserved matters built into the outline consent.

Those conditions define the remaining areas in which further approval is needed. A planning authority cannot use a condition dealing with one subject as a general opportunity to revisit the principle of the development or pursue an unrelated new policy objective.

The court described the grant of planning permission as locking in the developer’s right to proceed, subject to the conditions actually imposed.

National policy could not rewrite the conditions

In CG Fry, the conditions awaiting discharge concerned matters such as tree protection, drainage, construction management and infrastructure. They did not reserve a general power to reconsider phosphate impacts on the Ramsar site.

The council and Inspector could not use later national policy and new scientific advice to expand those conditions into a new control over the principle of the development. If a permission is to be revoked or modified outside its existing terms, the planning legislation provides separate procedures which can carry compensation consequences.

CG Fry therefore succeeded on the second issue.

The case is not a general rejection of nutrient neutrality

This is an important limit on the judgment. CG Fry did not hold that nutrient effects can be ignored, nor that a later Habitats Regulations assessment is unlawful.

Where the Habitats Regulations themselves apply, the Supreme Court expressly confirmed that an appropriate assessment may be required at a later consent stage. The developer won on the Ramsar issue because the proposed control arose from national policy rather than the Habitats Regulations and fell outside the legal scope of the conditions already imposed.

For the wider issue, see our guide to nutrient neutrality.

Reserved matters and conditions remain limited by the outline permission

The judgment reinforces the established principle that a planning authority cannot use a later stage to go back on a point of principle already approved at outline stage. The authority can consider what has genuinely been reserved, but it must stay within those limits.

Planning Geek explains the distinction further on the pages covering reserved matters and the discharge of planning conditions.

Read the full CG Fry judgment

The official Supreme Court judgment is held in the Planning Geek case law library. Gold Members can open the protected PDF below.

CG Fry Case Law Page Updated: 9th September 2026