Conservation area – Proposals for development of site – Application for planning permission – Council failing to give required notice of public inquiry to neighbours – Neighbours challenging inspector’s decision – Whether neighbours substantially prejudiced by council’s failure to give proper notice – Judge dismissing appeal – Court of Appeal allowing neighbours’ appeal
Richlone Ltd, the developer, sought planning permission from the Camden London Borough Council (Camden), to redevelop a site within the Primrose Hill conservation area to provide a mixed development of offices and retail units. The proposal involved the demolition of the Victorian chapel of a former home for boys. Camden failed to give notice of their decision on the application within the prescribed period. The developer appealed against those failures to the Secretary of State for the Environment who appointed an inspector to determine the appeals. A number of local residents, the neighbours, objected to the proposal. Camden were required to inform the neighbours of the date of the inquiry, but failed to do so in due time. By letter dated August 21 1996, the inspector granted conservation area consent. The neighbours challenged that decision, contending, inter alia, that they had been substantially prejudiced by Camden’s failure to give them due notice of the date of the inquiry as required under rule 10(5)(b) of the Town and Country Planning Appeals (Determination by Inspectors)(Inquiries Proceedure) Rules 1992. The judge dismissed the appeal against the inspector’s decision and the neighbours appealed.
Held The appeal was allowed.
1. It was an important principle of public law that “people should not go away from any inquiry feeling ‘I’ve not had a fair deal’”: see Performance Cars Ltd v Secretary of State for the Environment [1978] 1 EGLR 143 per Denning LJ at p97. Parliament had regarded it as important that due notification be given to neighbours. Camden’s failure to do so had deprived the neighbours of the opportunity to seek to persuade the inspector, with informed arguments supported by properly considered and researched evidence, that the developer’s appeals should be dimissed. An expert would have found the Primrose Hill Building Study produced by the GLC Historic Buildings Divison in 1975, an authoritative source which categorised the chapel as “a building which contributed to the conservation area as a whole”, but that report had not come to light in the short time available to the neighbours, who were not planning professionals. It was in the nature of public inquiries that evidence might be produced to an inspector which would provide useful information to help him make his decision. The information in this document, had it been available to the inspector, might have made a difference and the neighbours had suffered substantial prejudice.
2. Likewise the expert traffic witness was unable in the time available to carry out the necessary survey work and investigations into the question of traffic congestion and road saftey.
Christopher Katkowski (instructed by Leigh Day & Co) appeared for the appellants; David Elvin (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first respondent; Michael Barnes QC (instructed by Lovell White Durrant) appeared for the second respondent, Richlone Ltd; the third respondent, Camden London Borough Council, did not appear and were not represented.
