A developer has won a legal battle in Londons High Court over the level of flood prevention works it is required to carry out before a supermarket store can be built in Frome, Somerset.
Mr Justice Sullivan ruled that Carter Commercial Developments (In Administration) only has to take measures to prevent flooding on the site, and is not required to carry out off-site works on an access road that is also liable to flooding.
The case centred on plans to build the store as well as a coffee shop, petrol filling station, car park and highway works, on land at Wallbridge, Frome.
Outline planning permission was granted for the scheme to Safeway in August 1992, before Carter Commercial bought the land.
Now Mr Justice Sullivan has found in favour of Carter, quashed the planning inspectors decision, and sent the matter back to the Secretary of State to be reconsidered in the light of his findings.
He said that, on its true construction, the condition only applied to flooding of the application site. Were it to require off-site works, he said, the obligation ought to have been imposed in “the clearest of terms”.
He said it was “trite law” that a condition imposed on a planning permission had to be precise, reasonable and necessary.
EGi News 28/05/02
