A man who had hoped that a proposed environmental project could help him onto the “housing ladder” must now find another way to buy his first home.
Andrew Blackburn had asked Sullivan J to quash an inspector’s decision refusing him planning permission for the housing scheme in the countryside. He claimed that he would be unable to fund a property any other way.
He also challenged the inspector’s decision to uphold an enforcement notice issued against him, requiring him to stop living in a caravan on the site and to remove bricks and rubble that had been used to create a footpath and access. Blackburn had been living on the site, where he had planted Christmas trees with a view to selling them, but had left before the enforcement notice was issued.
Dismissing his challenge, the judge said that he feared Blackburn was under the impression that the court was a “court of appeal” on the merits of the planning inspector’s decision.
“This court can consider applications for permission to appeal only if there is an identifiable error of law in the inspector’s decision. There is no such error, and it follows that this application for permission to appeal must be dismissed,” he said.
References: PLS News 14/3/03
