Commentary on Gladman

Ahead of Zoom meeting this evening I cut and paste some commentary on the Gladman case

Commentary on case

https://www.townlegal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/GLADMA1-1.pdf

This is helpful as says

Gladman’s proposed housing development included up to 470 dwellings on farmland in Kent. Gladman’s proposals to mitigate the development’s air quality impacts had included electric vehicle charging points for each dwelling. However, the inspector found no specific evidence that these measures would likely reduce use of private petrol and diesel vehicles. Accordingly, the inspector found that the proposed development would have at least a moderate and possibly a substantial adverse impact on local air quality, likely worsening exceedances of the annual objectives for legal minimum nitrogen dioxide emissions in the local air quality management areas (of Newington and Rainham), with a significant effect on human health. As a result, the inspector concluded that approval of the proposed development would be inconsistent both with the EU Air Quality Directive (as transposed into English law and implemented locally in England since 2010 to protect human health and the environment as a whole), and with the National Planning Policy Framework’s (NPPF) paragraph 124 requiring local limitation of pollutant emissions. END extract



https://www.farrer.co.uk/news-and-insights/developers-should-demonstrate-how-measures-designed-to-reduce-air-pollution-will-be-effective-gladman-developments-ltd-v-ssclg--cpre-kent-2019/

Developers should provide robust evidence to support their air quality assumptions and mitigation
A developer seeking to reduce predicted air pollution from their proposed development to an acceptable level should base their assumptions, and proposed mitigation, on robust, supporting evidence. Predictions on air quality levels without the development must be realistic and, without sufficient evidence, cannot assume the Government will meet their target deadlines. Furthermore, a local planning authority or Inspector is unlikely to look favourably on a development which makes these levels harder to achieve for the Government.

Mitigation measures, whether proposed by the developer or from another source (such as the Government), must be shown to be effective in reducing pollutant levels by for example, translating to less polluting and/or fewer vehicles on the road. For example, Gladman proposed an air quality mitigation measure for an unrelated development in Bewdley [4] which was accepted by an Inspector. This comprised a financial contribution of £950,000 for the provision of six Euro VI buses to serve routes in the affected area. The Inspector in this case accepted evidence that the buses would perform as predicted and improve air quality in the area.

The type of measures and level of evidence required to show that your proposals would lead to a reduction in air pollution depends on the particular characteristics of a development. END extract

So a developer can win if developer can demonstrate, per Bewdley above, if air quality will improve as a consequence of development. I cannot find evidence that the Tesco application meets that test.