him. The Trust was well aware of the point of statutory construction, having raised it with the Minister in advance of the inquiry but it did not pursue the matter at the inquiry. It is, he submitted, not tenable to sustain an argument under s288 of the Town and Country Planning Act that the Court should now interfere with the decision of the Minister to grant planning permission on the basis of the disputed effect of private legislation, a point that was only raised in the present proceedings after the decision to grant planning permission had been made. The Inspector cannot be criticised for not considering a matter which the Trust did not raise when it had the opportunity to do so. 113. In response, Mr Drabble submitted that there is no general rule preventing a party from raising an argument in a planning challenge that was not advanced by the party before the Inspector. A person with standing is entitled to a lawful decision. Mr Drabble relied on the following dicta of the Deputy High Court Judge in South Oxfordshire DC v Secretary of State for the Environment Transport and the Regions [2000] 2 All ER 667: “I do not think that there can be any general rule that a party to a planning appeal decision is to be prevented from raising in a challenge to that decision an argument that was not advanced in representations made on the appeal. If the inspector has omitted a material consideration which could have affected his decision the decision may on that account be rendered unlawful, notwithstanding that the matter was not raised in the representations…” “In an appeal against the refusal of planning permission…the issue, defined by the appeal, is whether planning permission should be granted; and the test of materiality is essentially that of relevance (see Stringer v Minister of Housing and Local Government [1970] 1 WLR 1281 at 671 (j) - 678 (b)).” 114. In response, Mr Mould pointed out that the Deputy High Court Judge had nonetheless refused permission for the introduction of other arguments which could have been, but were not, raised, at the inquiry and which would have necessitated factual inquiry: “the grounds of challenge were set out in the notice of motion. In the course of the hearing, Mr Harper sought permission to amend the notice by adding additional grounds. There was no objection to certain of the proposed additions by Mr David Elvin for the First Respondent and Mr David Holgate QC for the Second Respondent, and I allowed those. I refused permission for the other amendments because they sought to advance arguments that could have been raised, but were not raised, at the inquiry. If they had been raised, the Second Respondent would almost certainly have wished to call further evidence and/or have advanced arguments to deal with them. I 41