A Surrey-based developer must wait to hear whether the High Court will overturn a planning inspector’s refusal of permission for a health and fitness club.
Collins J has reserved his decision as to whether the inspector unlawfully refused to allow Hammersmatch Properties to carry out plans for the gym in the Vosper Building, Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire.
Hammersmatch applied to change the use of the two-storey industrial site in December 2002. It intended to open the 26,000 sq ft (2,415 sq m) health club on the ground and first floors, while refurbishing the building to provide B1 serviced office accommodation.
However, in August 2004, inspector David Tester refused the application, stating that, having regard to local planning policies, the development was neither an appropriate use of employment land nor was needed within the district.
In the High Court today, W Robert Griffiths QC, counsel for Hammersmatch, claimed that the inspector had “erred in law” in failing to determine the existence of a need for further leisure development in Welwyn. In documents before the court, he argued that “there was a pressing and immediate need for at least two or three new leisure facilities in the district”.
He also claimed that the inspector’s finding that the proposed development was not an appropriate use of employment land was “perverse”, in the light of evidence that the building has lain vacant for more than five years, attempts to let it have been unsuccessful, and the building was unlikely to be let before the expiry of the present lease in 2009.
However, Philip Coppel, counsel for the first secretary of state, said that although a need for further health and fitness facilities in the area could be established, the inspector had found no evidence that such a need was “pressing and urgent”.
He also claimed that the inspector had been entitled to find that the site was required to meet a future employment need. “A change in use of employment land would be allowed only where it was no longer required to meet future employment needs,” he said.
Collins J is expected to give a written judgment later this term.
Hammersmatch Properties Ltd v First Secretary of State and another Administrative Court (Collins J) 14 January 2005.
W Robert Griffiths QC and Stephen Whale (instructed by Thomas Eggar, of Crawley) appeared for the claimant; Philip Coppel (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first defendant.
References: EGi Legal News 14/01/05
