R (Lee Valley Regional Park Authority) v Epping Forest District Council & Anor [2016] EWCA Civ 404
Lee Valley Green Belt glasshouse is a Court of Appeal judgment about a proposed 92,000 square metre agricultural glasshouse in the Metropolitan Green Belt.
The court held that, under the 2012 NPPF wording then in force, buildings for agriculture and forestry were an unqualified category of development which was not inappropriate in the Green Belt. That did not mean the development automatically had to be approved: landscape, visual, development-plan and ecological effects still had to be considered separately.
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
- [2016] EWCA Civ 404
- Court
- Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
- Judgment date
- 22nd April 2016
- Judge
- Lord Justice Treacy, Lord Justice Underhill and Lord Justice Lindblom
- Case number
- C1/2015/1430
What Lee Valley Green Belt glasshouse decided
Epping Forest District Council granted permission for a huge commercial glasshouse near the Lee Valley Special Protection Area and Ramsar site. The Regional Park Authority challenged the decision on Green Belt, development-plan and Habitats grounds.
The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal on all three grounds.
Agricultural buildings were an unqualified Green Belt exception
The 2012 NPPF listed buildings for agriculture and forestry as an exception to inappropriate development without adding the openness qualification which appeared alongside some other exceptions.
Lindblom LJ held that this wording was deliberate. The physical size or bulk of an agricultural building could not be used to turn development within that category back into inappropriate development for the purposes of the old paragraph 89.
That was only the threshold Green Belt question. A very large agricultural building could still be refused because of landscape, visual, countryside, amenity or other policy harm.
The development plan still had to be applied as a whole
The council accepted conflict with some older local policies but weighed that against economic benefits, the importance of the glasshouse industry, landscaping, ecological mitigation and the difficulty of finding a less harmful site.
The Court of Appeal held that the officer report had properly carried out the section 38(6) exercise. Officer reports are read fairly and as a whole, not as though they were statutes.
The Habitats screening part of Lee Valley is now historical
The council and Natural England concluded that no appropriate assessment was required because, with the proposed ecological mitigation in place, the development was unlikely to have a significant effect on the protected European sites.
The Court of Appeal upheld that approach in 2016. That particular screening principle must not now be treated as current law. The Court of Justice later held in People Over Wind that mitigation measures intended to avoid or reduce harmful effects cannot be taken into account at the screening stage.
See our current guide to Habitats Regulations Assessment. The Planning Geek library also contains the later People Over Wind judgment.
The NPPF wording in this case is also historical
Lee Valley interpreted the 2012 NPPF. Current Green Belt proposals must be assessed against the current NPPF rather than the former paragraph numbers and wording quoted in this judgment.
For today’s position, see our guide to Green Belt, grey belt, greenfield and brownfield land.
Read the full Lee Valley judgment
The full Court of Appeal judgment is held in the Planning Geek case law library. Gold Members can open the protected PDF below.
Lee Valley Green Belt Glasshouse Case Law Page Updated: 10th September 2026