Building used as storehouse while main building under-going restoration — Inspector upholding notice — Deemed refusal of planning permission — Inspector giving time for discussions between owner and local planning authority to solve storage problem — Discussions not materialising — Whether inspector’s decision to be quashed — First instance decision refusing owner’s application — Appeal dismissed
The owner was undertaking long-term restoration to a Grade 1 listed house in Hammerson Park, Forest Row, East Grinstead, Sussex, an area of outstanding natural beauty. In the course of those works, a two-storey timberframe building was erected next to a workshop. The local planning authority issued an enforcement notice requiring demolition of the building. The owner appealed and applied for permission for retention of the building for use as storage. The inspector dismissed that application and upheld the enforcement notice. However, he varied the notice to extend the compliance period from three to six months, in order to find an acceptable long-term solution to the storage issue and allow more time for constructive discussions to take place between the parties involved. There was no dispute that it was necessary for there to be some provision for a store in connection with the restoration work of the principal house.
The owner/applicant appealed to the High Court on the ground, inter alia, that the inspector’s reasoning had been thwarted in that the giving of the extra time had not resulted in a solution while his letter in terms upheld the notice. At the appeal, the owner argued that as the council insisted on the enforcement notice which required demolition of the building, the decision letter failed to achieve its intent and purpose. A decision which was ineffective to achieve its object could not have been validly expressed, it was submitted.
Held The appeal was dismissed.
1. According to the applicant, the local planning authority had refused to enter discussions. The inspector could not be blamed for any alleged intransigence on the part of the local authority.
2. The court could not accept that any such circumstance as a failure of discussion, following upon a decision letter, could ever undermine the legal validity of that decision. That had to be judged at the date of the decision.
3. It had been argued that there had been two alternatives open to the inspector to reflect that the council might act as they did; he could have given temporary planning permission, but that argument had been rejected by the judge below.
4. The second alternative was that he should have deferred his decision so as to allow the parties time to enter into a section 106 agreement under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. However, it could not be right to twist the parties’ arms to enter into a section 106 agreement. Even assuming that there were circumstances where a decision could be deferred by resolving difficulties by a section 106 agreement, there was no proper basis in the present case for that course of action.
5. It was clear that the inspector had reached a conclusion that the particular building should not receive planning permission.
6. The inspector had been indulgent by extending time; of course, he envisaged discussion with the local planing authority, but by no means were they necessarily to prove fruitful or result in the retention of the building in modified form.
Barry Payton (instructed by John Pinnegar & Co, of Oxted) appeared for the appellant; Natalie Lieven (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the Secretary of State for the Environment; Russell Harris (instructed by the solicitor to Wealden District Council) appeared for the local planning authority.
