R (on the application of Andrew Rickards) v East Hertfordshire District Council [2025] EWHC 2278 (Admin)
Rickards v East Herts is an important Planning Court judgment on agricultural permitted development and prior approval. It confirms that the process is deliberately lighter than a full planning application, but light touch does not mean no touch. The council was entitled to accept the evidence that the basic Part 6 Class A requirements were met, but the prior approval was unlawful because the officer failed to consider a nearby ancient woodland and the setting of a listed building.
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- Neutral citation
- [2025] EWHC 2278 (Admin)
- Court
- High Court of Justice, King's Bench Division, Planning Court
- Judgment date
- 5th September 2025
- Judge
- Mr Tim Smith (sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge)
- Case number
- AC-2024-LON-002558
What Rickards v East Herts decided
The case concerned three large polytunnels and related works at Bucksbury Farm in Hertfordshire. The development relied on the agricultural permitted development rights in Part 6 Class A of the GPDO for agricultural units of at least 5 hectares.
East Hertfordshire District Council decided that prior approval was required for the siting, design and external appearance of the works and then granted that approval. A neighbouring resident challenged the decision.
The challenge failed on the arguments about whether the agricultural unit was at least 5 hectares and whether the council should have demanded more information. But it succeeded because the council had failed to consider the effects on Bayford Wood, an ancient woodland, and on the setting of the claimant’s Grade II listed house.
Prior approval is about how permitted development is carried out
The court stressed an important distinction. Where the requirements for permitted development are satisfied, the principle of the development has already been established by the GPDO. The prior-approval process then controls specified details and impacts.
Mr Tim Smith described the distinction as broadly a question of how the development is carried out rather than if development should be permitted at all.
The court also confirmed that the authority can consider whether prior approval is needed and, if it is, whether the submitted details should be approved as part of the same process.
Light touch does not mean no touch
The Planning Practice Guidance describes prior approval as a light-touch process. Rickards accepts that local planning authorities should not recreate the full planning-application system or impose unnecessary burdens.
But a lighter process still needs an appropriate degree of rigour. The court drew a distinction between checking the definitional requirements that determine whether permitted development rights exist at all and considering the later details controlled by prior approval. A light touch is less appropriate when deciding whether the basic statutory entitlement exists.
The council could accept the evidence about the 5-hectare agricultural unit
The application form said the agricultural unit extended to 8 hectares, and the planning statement described the agricultural activities and stated that the holding extended to just over 8 hectares. The claimant produced no evidence showing that this was wrong.
The court held that the planning officer was entitled to conclude that there was sufficient evidence to satisfy the 5-hectare requirement. There is no general rule that an authority must carry out a site visit or seek independent corroboration whenever an agricultural prior approval is submitted.
Where there is a genuine conflict of evidence or an issue that cannot rationally be resolved on the papers, more investigation may be needed. That was not the problem on this part of the Rickards application.
The ancient woodland and listed building could not be ignored
The position was very different when the court considered Bayford Wood and the listed building known as The Gage.
Neither designation was mentioned in the officer report or the application material, and there was no evidence showing that the officer knew about them. The court rejected the suggestion that a general conclusion about the character and appearance of the surrounding area could be treated as though it had silently included an assessment of these protected assets.
The impacts on the ancient woodland and listed-building setting were material considerations which had to be addressed when the council decided the prior-approval details.
A benign reading is not a creative re-imagining
Rickards applies the familiar principle that planning officer reports should be read fairly and with reasonable benevolence rather than hypercritically.
But that principle has limits. The judge said there is a world of difference between a benign reading of what an officer report means and a creative re-imagining of what it says. Where the report gave no clue that the officer was even aware of the ancient woodland or listed building, the court could not invent an assessment that was not there.
The local planning authority can be expected to know its own designations
The applicant had not highlighted the ancient woodland or listed building either. That did not save the council’s decision.
The judgment states that a local planning authority can be taken to know about protective designations applying in its own area. Once those designations were material to the matters being considered through prior approval, the authority had to take them into account.
The missing site notice also mattered to the timing of the challenge
Because the council had decided that prior approval was required, the GPDO required the applicant to display a site notice. It was common ground that no notice was displayed.
Local residents did not discover the approval until work began. The court had already allowed the judicial review claim to proceed out of time on that basis. The site-notice point did not itself determine the substantive grounds, but it is an important reminder that the procedural conditions attached to permitted development rights matter.
Read the full Rickards judgment
The approved Planning Court judgment is held in the Planning Geek case law library. Gold Members can open the protected PDF below. If you are not signed in with Gold access, the button will take you to the appropriate membership option.
Related Planning Geek guidance
For the agricultural right itself, see Part 6 Class A agricultural development and our guide to polytunnels. We explain the wider process on the prior approval page and the government’s guidance on our Planning Practice Guidance page. For the protected designations, see ancient woodland and listed buildings.
Rickards Case Law Page Updated: 9th September 2026