"They do not stand up to scrutiny and there was no material difference between the position in respect of noise, air quality and carbon between its resolutions in 2018 and 2020," it said.
"The council persisted in arguing for the imposition of a condition (so called ‘condition 15’), which is clearly unlawful and fails to meet the tests contained in the National Planning Policy Framework, unnecessarily prolonging the Inquiry."
The council's reliance on "a perceived direction of travel in policy or emerging policy that may never come into being in the form anticipated is not a sound basis for making planning decisions" and an appeal should not have been necessary, inspectors said.