Property developer Bellway Homes has won a dispute over a 25cm-wide strip of land next to one of its developments.
The developer is being sued by Lionel Cozens-Smith, one of four people who sold the firm a £9m plot of land in Cranleigh, Surrey, in 2016. The plot has planning permission to build 75 homes.
Cozens-Smith retained ownership of a 25cm strip of land along one edge of the field. Bellway, as part of its development, has built a footpath that crosses the strip.
This has lead to a complicated legal dispute that explores the nature of planning permission, but has ultimately ended with a judge ruling that Cozens-Smith’s claim should be dismissed.
Lawyers for Cozens-Smith argued at a hearing in July that, for technical reasons, the planning permission on the plot that Bellway acquired when it bought the land, didn’t grant it rights of access over the strip.
But in a ruling this week High Court Judge Master Shuman disagreed.
“The key issue before me concerns the meaning of ‘planning permission’ in the transfer dated 21 December 2016,” he said in his ruling.
“It is a short question of construction as to whether planning permission included only the outline planning permission (OPP) dated 1 July 2016 or the approval of reserved matters (the disputed ARM) dated 28 July 2017 as well.”
“It is the defendant’s contention that if I accept the construction contended for by the defendant all other issues fall away.”
“I am satisfied that the definition of planning permission clearly included not only the OPP but also the disputed ARM, and indeed any ARM.”
He said that the claim should be “struck out”.
Lionel Jeffrey Cozens-Smith v Bellway Homes Limited
Property and Business Courts (Master Shuman) 26 November 2019
Tom Carpenter-Leitch (instructed on a direct access basis) for the Claimant
John Randall QC (instructed by Gateley plc) for the Defendant
