Brent council face an inquiry into their use of a £550,000 payment made by a religious charity for local highway works.
The Court of Appeal has ruled that the council might be liable to refund part of the moneys given by the trustees of the Swaminarayan Hindu Mission to improve roads around a proposed residential scheme at the former Neasden High School.
In ordering a master to investigate, the court said that the council might have used the funds partly to improve roads not covered by the parties’ section 106 agreement.
The trustees had purchased the site from the council in 1990 in order to convert the buildings into a temple. However, they later sold the site to developer Fairclough Homes, which obtained planning consent for a 149-house project. The consent provided that the trustees would pay £550,000 to improve access to and from the site.
The improvements, which the authority agreed to carry out by October 1994, comprised alterations to the junction of Neasden Lane North and Quainton Street, together with the improvement of highway safety and the free flow of traffic.
According to the mission, the council failed to carry out any works until 2000, when they installed traffic lights at the junction and completed a scheme of associated footpath widening and improvement.
Latham LJ today rejected the trustees’ claims that they were entitled to a full £550,000 refund on the basis that the six-year delay had amounted to a repudiation of the council’s obligations under the agreement.
However, he accepted evidence that the council had used part of the moneys to alter a junction at Braemar Avenue, a tributary road of Neasden Lane North, which was not covered by the agreement.
He said that the council’s argument that they could draw down funds for any works “connected in some way” to the Quainton Street junction went “too far”.
A master will now decide the extent of the works that qualify under the agreement.
Patel and others v Brent London Borough Council (No 2) Court of Appeal (Auld, Latham and Jacob LJJ) 25 May 2005.
Jonathan Small (instructed by Hugh Cartwright & Amin) appeared for the appellants; Edwin Johnson (instructed by CMS Cameron McKenna LLP) appeared for the respondents.
References: EGi Legal News 25/05/05
