“what is essentially a judicial function, to determine whether planning permission could reasonably have been expected to be granted. The determination to be made in such circumstances, clearly, is not as to whether the planning authority could reasonably have been expected to grant permission but whether it would have been reasonable for planning permission to be granted.”
“If the application does not accord with the development plan it will be refused unless there are material considerations indicating that it should be granted. One example of such a case may be where a particular policy in the plan can be seen to be outdated and superseded by more recent guidance. Thus the priority given to the development plan is not a mere mechanical preference for it. There remains a valuable element of flexibility.”
“Policy S5 - Extension to the Green Belt An extension to the Green Belt will extend from the existing boundary northwards to lie: • [a list of 18 settlements and other locations covering a wide area incorporating Morpeth] Precise boundaries, including those around settlements, should be defined in Local Plans having particular regard to the maintenance of the role of Morpeth as defined in Policy S7 and to the sequential approach in Policy S11.”
“The following principles emerge from these authorities: - i) It is always desirable that an expert should have no actual or apparent interest in the outcome of the proceedings. ii) The existence of such an interest, whether as an employee of one of the parties or otherwise, does not automatically render the evidence of the proposed expert inadmissible. It is the nature and extent of the interest or connection which matters, not the mere fact of the interest or connection. 30 iii) Where the expert has an interest of one kind or another in the outcome of the case, the question of whether he should be permitted to give evidence should be determined as soon as possible in the course of case management. iv) The decision as to whether an expert should be permitted to give evidence in such circumstances is a matter of fact and degree. The test of apparent bias is not relevant to the question of whether or not an expert witness should be permitted to give evidence. v) The questions which have to be determined are whether (i) the person has relevant expertise and (ii) he or she is aware of their primary duty to the Court if they give expert evidence, and willing and able, despite the interest or connection with the litigation or a party thereto, to carry out that duty. vi) The Judge will have to weigh the alternative choices open if the expert’s evidence is excluded, having regard to the overriding objective of the Civil Procedure Rules. vii) If the expert has an interest which is not sufficient to preclude him from giving evidence the interest may nevertheless affect the weight of his evidence.”