Chichester District Council is to pay £99,000 in costs after its decision to refuse a planning application was overturned on appeal.
In June 2025, the council’s planning committee went against the recommendation of officers and refused plans to build up to 49 homes on land east of Inlands Road, Nutbourne.
The applicant, Metis Homes Ltd, launched an appeal, which ruled that the council had shown ‘unreasonable behaviour resulting in unnecessary or wasted expense’. As such, the authority was ordered by the Planning Inspectorate to pay Metis Homes ‘the costs of the appeal proceedings’.
The matter was discussed during a meeting of the cabinet on Tuesday (September 1), where it was agreed that the money would be taken from General Fund Reserves.
The planning committee refused the application on highway and railway safety grounds – the site is immediately south of the railway line. But the planning inspector said there was not enough evidence to support the refusal and the council was ‘unreasonable’ to do so on those grounds.
Bill Brisbane, cabinet member for planning, said the £99,000 was a ‘significant reduction from the original amount claimed’ – though he didn’t say how much that had been.
Adrian Moss, leader of the council said officers had done an ‘amazing job’ in getting the costs reduced.
Defending the decision to refuse the application, he added: “As a council, it’s right for us to go through this process, allow our planning committee to make a decision on those grounds and then try to defend it with the inspector – and if the inspector goes against it then that is something we have to accept.
“I don’t believe councillors here would say that we shouldn’t be doing that. Whilst it’s a cost to us, I think actually we can hold our heads up high and say that was our democratic right to do that.”
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