R v Amber Valley DC, ex parte Jackson [1985] 1 WLR 298

• One group of councillors supported a planning application. It was then asked whether that prevented a member of the group sitting on the committee which would assess it.

• The court held that members could not be so disqualified. 

Woolf J

• Political bias, unlike financial interest or previous relations between the parties, cannot exclude members supporting the application from sitting on the committee.

If this was to be regarded as disqualifying the district council from dealing with the planning application, then if that disqualification is to be avoided, the members of the planning committee at any rate will have to adopt standards of conduct which I suspect will be almost impossible to achieve in practice.