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ARTICLE · 20 SEPTEMBER 2006

Bias and Local Authority Decisions

Pinsent Masons
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On 25 August 2006 Collins J significantly recharted the application of bias in local authority decision-making when he departed from the leading Georgiou case to accept assertions from the decision-making councillors in question that they had not entered a meeting with closed minds.

United KingdomGovernment, Public Sector
Nicholas Dobson
Nicholas Dobson

On 25 August 2006 Collins J significantly recharted the application of bias in local authority decision-making when he departed from the leading Georgiou case to accept assertions from the decision-making councillors in question that they had not entered a meeting with closed minds.

The case in question was R (Island Farm Development Ltd) v Bridgend County Borough Council [2006] EWHC 2189 (Admin) which concerned a decision by the Council to refuse to sell to a developer land the Council had previously been in negotiations to sell. This was following a change in political control where local opposition to the proposed development had featured prominently in the local elections. Whilst the case has not altered the fundamental ingredients of bias, Island Farm, if correctly decided, would appear to make it much more difficult for bias to be established in local authority decisions.

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