Dr. Fred Logue:

I do not believe there is because it is just too vague. If I was looking at this as a lawyer I would ask why it was not written down that the decision should be made properly. It is complex but the instances where things can go legally wrong are actually limited. There is a skill involved and that is why the board is an expert decision-maker. Obviously, there are advantages and disadvantages but we must have a proportionate reaction to anything.

It would undermine the certainty of the decision-making and encourage poor decision-making if a board had a get-out-of-jail-free card. It would also be grossly unfair to members of the public who are trying to rely on this decision for them to then have the goal posts moved on the last day for example, after they have hired me or a barrister to look at a planning decision. The work would need to be thrown away and we would have to start again and spend another eight weeks on it. The question is why they cannot get it right the first time. I acknowledge again that only a small number of planning decisions go to judicial review. When SHDs are removed the number is only 1%, so why put in something like this to solve a problem that is quite small in the grand scale of things?