Crawley Borough Council was today left facing a £50,000-plus legal costs bill after developers hoping to build a new sustainable neighbourhood of houses, schools and shops on Crawley's North East Sector site won a High Court victory.

Earlier this year Taylor Wimpey UK Ltd and Beazer Homes (Reigate) Ltd won a key ruling quashing the Government's decision to refuse planning permission for the scheme.

Today, in a second round of the battle they triumphed in their attack on a Crawley Borough Council planning strategy document that restricts the land that can be used for development based on noise from nearby Gatwick airport.

They persuaded judge Mr Justice Wilkie to quash one of the 'key objectives and principles for development of the North east sector' contained in the Crawley Borough Local Development Framework Core Strategy.

The ruling potentially clears another hurdle in the developers' long fight to build the new neighbourhood. Now they await a reconsideration of their planning application by the country's planning supremo, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Hazel Blears.

Meanwhile, the Council must find an immediate £50,000 towards the developers' legal bills for the latest case. The judge ordered the Council to pay costs in full, to be assessed later, but to pay the £50,000 figure up front. The final cost is expected to be higher.

In the Core Strategy, development is constrained beyond a '60 decibel contour' around Gatwick – essentially thwarting any development on land where the sound levels from the airport are at that level or higher.

But the developers argued that this lowered the threshold considerably from the 66 decibel contour in the most recent development plan for the area.

They claimed this new lower constraint severely prejudiced their plan, and was unlawful.

They argued that the Council failed to provide reasons for the decision, and that it could not be founded on any evidence base, let alone a robust and credible one.

They complained that the Strategy was based, in part, on the May 2007 decision of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Hazel Blears, which was quashed by the High Court earlier this year.

Backing their challenge, and quashing part of the Core Strategy today, the judge said: "In my judgment it introduces an uneasy and prejudicial obstacle in the way of the claimants were they to seek planning permission or, as it turns out, the Secretary of State has to reconsider their application."

He said that, in the Core Strategy, the Council "erroneously overstated" the decision of the Secretary of State on the planning appeal, both as it stood at the time of the decision, and in the light of it being quashed earlier this year.

In July, High Court judge Mr Justice Andrew Collins quashed the decision to refuse permission for the development, which would entail development of 2,200 new homes on the site. The judge ordered her to reconsider the case, giving developers Taylor Wimpey UK Ltd and Beazer Homes (Reigate) Ltd a fresh chance at securing planning permission.

The developers had claimed, among other things, that the scheme was wrongly rejected on the basis that it could have implications in respect of proposals for a second runway at Gatwick. They claimed a major question mark remains over the runway proposals and that in those circumstances this was not a good reason to block their plans.

The developers say that a second runway at Gatwick is not the Government's preferred option, and is only a reserve option behind the preferred plan of adding a second runway at Stansted and a third at Heathrow. They said that Gatwick will only be called on if the preferred option does not prevail, and even then won't be needed until at least 2019.

The judge ruled that the Government planning inspector who held a public inquiry into the scheme had "too readily rejected" evidence put forward by the developers relating to the area's need for the extra homes on the site.

Crawley Borough Council has issued the following statement in response to today's (October 15) High Court judgement on its Core Strategy relating to the North East Sector.

Councillor Claire Denman, Cabinet member for Planning and Economic Development, said: "We are extremely disappointed with today's ruling. It is important that people who live in Crawley can be assured of a good environment, free from the effects of excessive aircraft noise.

"The Government has failed to provide certainty over the future growth of Gatwick and this decision may well affect our ability to prevent houses being built in an area which could, one day, be extremely noisy. The judgement, however, is very long so we need time to digest it carefully and understand its full implications.

"It does feel like being caught between a rock and a hard place, though.

"We followed the recommendations of the Planning Inspector and adopted our Core Strategy.

"It seems very unfair that we are the ones who are challenged in the courts when we are required by law to follow those recommendations."