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The Supreme Court has provided a comprehensive analysis of councillors’ right to vote and when that right may be restricted. The Court decided that it is lawful for standing orders in an authority’s Constitution to restrict voting by committee members on a deferred application for planning permission to those who had been present at the meeting(s) at which the application had previously been considered.
Spitalfields Historic Buildings Trust (“the Trust”) challenged the grant of planning permission for redevelopment at the Old Truman Brewery by Tower Hamlets Council. At a meeting in April 2021, the planning application was deferred by the planning committee, to seek changes to the section 106 agreement. When the application returned to the committee in September 2021, only those committee members who had attended the April meeting were permitted to vote, pursuant to a standing order in the Constitution.
The Supreme Court rejected the Trust’s contention that the standing order preventing members who had not attended the previous meeting from voting contravened the fundamental right of councillors to vote. The right of councillors to vote on local authority business is not an established right recognised by the common law outside the statutory regime of which it forms a part. Standing orders may be made under para 42 of Schedule 12 to the Local Government Act 1972 and may restrict voting rights where it is rational to do so, as is the case with planning applications that are deferred.
A copy of the judgment is available here.
Timothy Corner KC appeared for the successful developer, Old Truman Brewery Ltd.
Tim was instructed by Ashley Damiral and Gael Hardie of CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP.
