High Court battle looms over NHS vaccination building

Long-running dispute to be set

A High Court battle looks set to be sparked over a long-running dispute to retain an NHS drive-through vaccination centre.

The owners of Greendale Farm Shop have revealed that after losing an appeal over the issue at the Planning Inspectorate, they are now taking their fight to the next level.

A spokesperson for the firm confirmed that they did not agree with the outcome of the recent appeal on a legal basis, and so have just submitted a challenge in the High Court.

“The NHS wants to stay put and they have a lease on the building,” a spokesperson for Greendale said.

“We made our appeal to the Planning Inspectorate under four grounds and we don’t believe all of those have been made reference to in the decision notice.”

The saga has been rumbling on for years, with Greendale removing a chicken shed from the same site, and according to official documents, “a new larger structure was erected in the same place which permitted development rights did not permit”.

A 2023 planning application by Greendale sought to retain the building, but that was refused by East Devon District Council because it was outside the boundary where development was permitted and because it believed there was an “absence of a robust justification and evidence of need” for the site.

That decision was taken to the Planning Inspectorate, which sided with the council. East Devon subsequently issued an enforcement notice demanding the building and parking area be returned to agricultural use.

Greendale’s owners again took their plight to the government planning arbitrator in a bid to overturn the enforcement notice.

However, in a fresh decision issued late in January this year, the Planning Inspectorate upheld the enforcement notice, meaning it supported the council’s belief that the building has to be taken down.

The NHS Vaccination Centre has a drive-through provision, and is different to the much larger structure that also served as a vaccination centre during lockdown and which is on nearby Greendale Business Park land.

That larger building is no longer used by the NHS, but is occupied by an alternative health provider, and planning permission for that building has been previously approved.

East Devon states the reasons for its enforcement notice on the drive-through building are that it is “outside of any recognised development boundary”, even though it is just metres from the well-used Greendale Farm Shop and Cafe.

It is also virtually directly opposite Mud-Ventures play site, which was itself the subject of a Planning Inspectorate decision in its favour. In that case, the council also felt it was outside the area where development should occur, but the Planning Inspectorate felt the building was in keeping with others on the site and that Mud Ventures was unlikely to draw huge amounts of extra traffic given that people were likely to use more than one of Greendale’s services once there.

The council called the drive-through building “unjustified and unsustainable development in the countryside”, and that “its nature as a drive-thru vaccination centre means that people are likely to access the site via private car”, which is contrary to its policies linked to encouraging developments that can be accessed by public transport.

“It is not considered that there are material circumstances to outweigh the adverse impacts of development in this location which justify a departure from policy,” the council said in its enforcement notice.

“The environmental harm is considered to outweigh the social benefits that would be derived from the provision of a permanent building for the NHS to roll out their vaccination programme.”

The appellants had claimed that the enforcement notice was “defective”, and while the Planning Inspectorate stated he had “sympathy” with that suggestion, ultimately it found in favour of the council, albeit suggesting amendments to the enforcement notice.

The Planning Inspectorate agreed that while there were benefits to a vaccination centre, it had not been demonstrated that the service could not be better delivered elsewhere.

The documents also state that the NHS lease ends in March 2026, but it is not clear if that has been extended in the meantime.