R (Corbett) v Cornwall Council [2019] EWHC 1022 (Admin)
This was the first-instance Planning Court judgment in the Sun Haven Valley Caravan Park litigation. The High Court quashed Cornwall Council’s permission, but the decision was reversed by the Court of Appeal in R (Corbett) v Cornwall Council [2020] EWCA Civ 508.
The case is therefore useful principally for understanding the procedural history and the reasoning that the Court of Appeal later rejected.
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- Neutral citation
- [2019] EWHC 1022 (Admin)
- Court
- High Court, Queen's Bench Division, Planning Court
- Judgment date
- 1st May 2019
- Judge
- Mr C M G Ockelton, Vice President of the Upper Tribunal, sitting as a deputy judge of the High Court
- Case number
- CO/1452/2018
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The High Court treated the landscape policy as decisive
The development was an extension to an existing holiday park within an Area of Great Landscape Value. The officer’s report accepted that the proposal would cause some landscape harm, but concluded that the tourism and economic benefits justified approval and that the scheme accorded with the development plan as a whole.
Mr C M G Ockelton, sitting as a deputy High Court judge, held that the saved landscape policy meant development causing such harm should not be permitted. On that reasoning, the proposal was not in accordance with the development plan.
The officer report was found inadequate
The judge held that members should have been told that granting permission involved a decision not in accordance with the development plan and that they therefore needed to identify material considerations justifying that departure.
Because the officer’s report had approached the balancing exercise differently, the High Court concluded that the committee had not been properly directed and quashed the permission.
The Court of Appeal later rejected that approach
In [2020] EWCA Civ 508 the Court of Appeal held that the relevant policies had to be read together. The landscape policy did not automatically override the tourism policy, and it was for the council to exercise planning judgment on whether the proposal accorded with the development plan as a whole.
The Court of Appeal also held that the officer’s report was legally adequate. The 2019 judgment should therefore not be relied on for the proposition that conflict with the landscape policy necessarily meant conflict with the development plan as a whole.
Why keep the 2019 judgment?
It remains useful as the first-instance decision behind a leading Court of Appeal authority. Reading the two judgments together shows the boundary between interpreting policy as a matter of law and applying competing policies as a matter of planning judgment.
Read the full 2019 Corbett judgment
Planning Geek holds the High Court judgment in the protected case law library. Gold Members can open the PDF below.
Case Law Page Created: 26th September 2026