Moto Hospitality Ltd (App/E2734/W/20/3261729)
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APPEALS BY (1) APPLEGREEN PLC (APP/ E2734/W/20/3245778) (2) MOTO HOSPITALITY LTD (APP/E2734/W/20/3261729) PROPOSED MOTORWAY SERVICE AREA DEVELOPMENTS AT KIRBY HILL (‘VALE OF YORK MSA’) AND BALDERSBY GATE (‘RIPON MSA’) CLOSING SUBMISSIONS ON BEHALF OF MOTO HOSPITALITY LTD References are as follows: • Core Documents – by document number and page or paragraph as the context demands, e.g. CD6.2/14.3.3 or CD4.1/203 • Proofs of Evidence – by document number, witness and paragraph, e.g. MOTO13/Collins/2.1 • Oral Evidence – by witness, e.g. Collins EIC or Collins xx Introduction 1. The appeal by Moto Hospitality Ltd (Moto) concerns a proposal for a motorway service area (MSA) on a site adjacent to the existing Junction 50 of A1(M) known at this inquiry as Ripon MSA. Particulars of the application are provided in his proof of evidence by Mr Collins1 and in the Statement of Common Ground (SoCG) agreed between Moto and Harrogate Borough Council (HBC).2 The latter also identifies the policies in the development plan agreed to be relevant to the appeal and that there would be substantial compliance but for the issues in the single reason for refusal concerned primarily with landscape and visual effects of the development. 2. Whilst in outline only the details of scale, appearance and landscaping were originally reserved for subsequent approval. As a result of matters raised at the inquiry Moto now asks for layout also to be reserved, albeit by reference to the same drawings and information 1 MOTO13/Collins 6.2 2 SoCG/5.1 & 6.1 1 presented with the application and which formed the basis of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) as before.3 3. The proposal is intended to meet the need for a further MSA in the section of motorway between the existing MSAs at Wetherby to the south and Durham to the north. An MSA must be located adjacent to the motorway it is intended to serve. Where the motorway passes through the open countryside (as most do) suitable sites for MSAs must also be found there. As a result, it is likely that agricultural land will be called upon, inevitable that there will be some change in the character of the MSA site itself and probable that there will a degree of landscape harm, particularly at the outset. 4. All that being so, Moto accepts that this is a case in which the principles in Secretary of State v P.G. Edwards 4are engaged and that before granting planning permission for the Moto scheme (should he minded to do so) the decision-maker must first consider whether there is an alternative proposal that would achieve the same benefits but cause less planning harm. The proposal by Applegreen PLC for the Vale of York MSA at Kirby Hill is the only potential alternative that has so far been identified and falls to be compared against the Ripon MSA scheme on that basis. The only other current planning proposal for an MSA is at Catterick. The Secretary of State has declined to call-in that application from which it may be inferred that it is not a direct alternative to either the Ripon or the Vale of York proposals. Context: The 2012 Decision and Subsequent Events 5. As I indicated in opening, the 2012 decision of the Secretary of State to grant planning permission for a new motorway service area (MSA) at Leeming Bar sets the context for the present appeals. 6. The decision was on the basis that at the time there was already an established and pressing need for an MSA to serve the section of A1(M)/A1 (as it then was) between the existing MSA at Wetherby and the consented MSA at Barton which it was desirable to meet quickly in the interests of highway safety and economic development.5 Leeming Bar was chosen from among the available candidates because despite acknowledged operational 3 CD9.16/2.22ff 4(1995) 69 P & CR 607 5 CD6.2 SoS Letter/17 & 40-42 2 disadvantages it was a brownfield site which could be developed without any incursion into the open countryside and which appeared capable of being delivered more quickly than any of the greenfield candidates then under consideration.6 7. Nine years later, there is still no MSA to the north of Wetherby until Durham. The gap is 60.8 miles7, more than twice the maximum specified in Circular 02/20138 which is the source of current government policy for MSAs. Whilst the policy differs in some respects from the policy in force at the time of the 2012 decision,9 the imperative to secure the provision of full MSAs at regular intervals throughout the motorway network is unchanged. If the need that was identified in 2012 was pressing, it can only be even more so now. 8. The highways safety and economic benefits which the Secretary of State hoped would flow from the development of an MSA at Leeming Bar have not materialised. Moto owns and operates the Leeming Bar site and it is suggested on behalf of Applegreen that it has suited Moto’s commercial interests for that to be the case and that it is part of a pattern of non- delivery by a company which is among the UK’s leading MSA operators and developers (the company’s latest new MSA at Rugby has recently been completed and is scheduled to open shortly10). That is a curious charge to level at Moto which having invested heavily to acquire the site with the benefit of planning permission for an MSA now states that there is no realistic prospect of realising the fruits of that investment in the light of its experience of actually operating the site as a motorway rest area (MRA) in recent years11. 9. Moto had appeared at the 2012 inquiry to oppose all of the proposals then under consideration (including the Leeming Bar scheme) on the grounds that there was insufficient need for a new MSA on the relevant stretch of motorway within the terms of the MSA policy at the time. One of those competing schemes was for an MSA on what is now the Moto appeal site (known at the time as Baldersby Gate). Moto opposed it, inter alia, on landscape grounds, just as it opposed a scheme on another site at the same junction that was then supported by Welcome Break (now the prospective operators of the Applegreen scheme) as well as a scheme on the present Applegreen site (Kirby Hill). 10. It is alleged that Moto is inconsistent in now promoting a scheme on a site which it had previously opposed, even as Applegreen claim credit for having devised the Vale of 6 Ibid 40 & 41 7 Applegreen/Moto SoCG on Need/Table 3.2 8 CD5.3/ B6 9 CD5.5/Roberts xx 10 MOTO13/Collins 12.7 11 MOTO13/Collins 7.4 & 11.4/Collins EIC 3 York/Kirby Hill scheme in the light of the 2012 decision without being tainted by any previous involvement with the site. However, as Ms Illman12 explained, Moto’s position has been similarly informed by the 2012 decision. Whilst Moto can take comfort that some aspects of its case were accepted by the Inspector and the Secretary of State (for example in respect of the adverse landscape impacts of the Kirby Hill scheme) it equally accepts that others were not. Notably, whilst the Inspector criticised some aspects of the then proposals for what is now the Moto appeal site, he did not accept that the proposal would cause the degree of landscape harm which HBC and the commercial opponents (including Moto) had alleged, for instance in relation to distant views over the site from A61.13 His overall conclusions were that the landscape and visual impacts would be moderate becoming slight with mitigation.14 He found that the scheme was the best overall to meet the need then identified.15 11. The Secretary of State’s preference for the Leeming Bar site was because it held out the prospect of meeting the need more quickly and without any incursion into the open countryside as a brownfield site. In choosing Leeming Bar over the operationally (and locationally) superior candidate recommended by the Inspector, the Secretary of State acknowledged the inherent deficiencies of Leeming Bar as an MSA, because of its location remote from the motorway.16 Moto made the commercial decision to buy the site with the benefit of planning permission for an MSA, intending to develop it out in due course once the motorway schemes were completed. In the event, Moto’s experience of operating the site has convinced the company that it would be inappropriate to invest in developing as an MSA after all: quite simply the location so far from the motorway means that it could never function effectively as an MSA.17 12. The company has therefore turned to what the Inspector identified as the best of the candidates at the 2012 inquiry and has brought forward proposals on that site shaped by the Inspector’s conclusions about what was good and bad about the previous schemes. As Applegreen claim to have done in the case of Kirby Hill/Vale of York, so Moto has done in the case of Ripon MSA: they have learned from the Inspector’s and the Secretary of State’s conclusions and set out to bring forward proposals that are superior in important respects to the scheme favoured by the Inspector18. 12 MOTO10/Illman/3.2.1ff 13 CD6.2/11.6.15-11.6.18 & Illman xx 14 Ibid 14.5.58-14.5.60 15 Ibid 14.8.65 16 CD6.2 SoS Letter 41,42 17 Collins EIC, Roberts xx 18 MOTO10/Illman/3.2.1ff 4 13.