Photographic studios wins Planning Court battle over reprovision in proposed development

Mr Justice Jay found for photographic firm Holborn Studios against the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the London Borough of Hackney and property firm GHL (Eagle Wharf Road) but dismissed all other grounds argued.

Since 1987 Holborn Studios has transformed the site into Europe's largest photographic studio.

GHL proposes replacing the site’s present building with 30 homes and 5,591 square metres of commercial floorspace, with the present photographic businesses accommodated in the basement.

Jay J noted planning consent had first been quashed by the court in 2017 and had "a long and somewhat chequered planning history”,

Following a second quashing in 2020, Hackney reconsidered the proposal and rejected it contrary to an officer’s report because of the loss of the cultural value of the photographic studios and because the proposal failed to meet the target of 60% employment floorspace in the Wenlock Priority Office Area contrary to planning policy.

GHL then appealed and an inspector found in its favour despite arguments put by Holborn Studios that the basement was unsuitable for photographic work and required structural alterations.

Holborn Studios advanced several grounds but Jay J said one was “by a country mile” the strongest.

This was that given the inspector's findings it was not rational to find the scheme amounted to the ‘reprovision' of the cultural facility the photographic studio, as required by policy, in particular given the permitted use, design and the lack of control of the use of the building.

This was because neither the basement nor the ground floor and above office accommodation were designed for cultural facilities and they were not spaces which could only be used for cultural facilities. Nor would the basement provide a photographic studio of the quality of the existing one.

Jay J said the inspector’s decision letter on this point was “replete with difficulty”.

He said it failed to address the submission that the basement is too small and it was not clear whether the inspector had in mind photographic use or cultural/creative use any kind.

"Either way, it is difficult to understand how the basement in isolation is adequate (and that is not the finding the inspector makes in this first sentence), and the inspector fails to explain how and why it could amount to ‘reprovision’”, Jay J said.

He said a subsequent sentence was “completely unclear” as the inspector appeared to say the basement alone could acceptably ‘reprovide’ cultural facilities, “but her reasoning comes nowhere near addressing [Holborn Studios’] submission on quantity, and is also inconsistent with the penultimate sentence of [a later section] which suggests that the basement alone would not be sufficient.

"Further, the inspector's reasoning is altogether opaque: is she addressing use as a photographic studio (in which event, there would at least be relevant ‘reprovision', albeit not enough of it), or is she bringing into consideration other cultural uses altogether, as she started to do in the final sentence of [the decisions letter] (in which event she would clearly be erring, but for a different reason)?”

Jay J concluded the inspector's approach “cannot be supported, is internally inconsistent, is irrational, and that her reasoning is wholly unclear.

“At the very least, it was incumbent on the inspector to explain how and why the basement alone could constitute acceptable ‘reprovision’”.

Mark Smulian