Planning permission — Agricultural building — Variations to original proposal Claimant council alleging breach of planning control — Claimants issuing enforcement notice — Inspector dismissing appeal against notice — Whether claimants prejudiced by inspector failing to carry out accompanied site visit — Whether inspector failing to give rational and adequate reasons — Application allowed
The claimant council granted planning permission to the second defendant to erect a simple workshop. Building works began within the time allowed but then stalled. When the workshop was eventually completed, the claimants took the view that unapproved variations had been made to the original proposal so that the building bore no relation to the one for which permission had been granted and was tantamount to a new dwelling in the countryside, which was not justified under a number of planning policies. They also had concerns about the visual impact of the building and they therefore issued an enforcement notice alleging that the second defendant was in breach of planning control.
The second defendant appealed, pursuant to section 174 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. An inspector appointed by the first defendant rejected the second defendant’s argument, under section 174(2)(c), that the development did not require planning control since it came within Class A of Part 6 of Schedule 2 to the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995 (SI 1995/418). However, he went on to consider the appeal under section 174(2)(a) and concluded that planning permission should be granted for the building which had been erected.
The claimants applied, under section 288 of the Act, for an order to quash the decision. The questions for the court were whether: (i) the claimants had been prejudiced by the inspector’s procedural error in failing to carry out an accompanied site visit; and (ii) the inspector had failed to give rational and adequate reasons for his decision.
Held: The application was allowed.
(1) The claimants had suffered prejudice by the fact that the inspector had made an unaccompanied visit to the site, which meant that he was unable to access the land and look inside the building but could view it only from a public footpath in front of the property.
Since an acknowledged procedural error had occurred, it was sufficient for the claimants to persuade the court that the inspector’s decision might have been different had he made an accompanied site visit. It had been part of the claimants’ written case to the inspector that the scale, form and composition of the building gave the impression that the building was for residential rather than agricultural use and an internal inspection of the building would have been relevant in order to decide whether that was correct. Although internal partitioning and arrangements were not matters for which planning permission was necessary in relation to a building for which planning permission had already been granted, the internal arrangements might be pertinent in judging the nature of a building that lacked permission.
(2) Further, the inspector’s decision had either been insufficiently reasoned or it had not been a decision that, on the inspector’s findings, he could rationally have reached. Although the court had to be wary of demanding over-elaborate reasons from planning inspectors, the inspector in this case had failed to address the anterior question as to what was the essential nature or purpose of the building that had been constructed and required justification. The claimants were entitled to know why their central contention that the building was tantamount to a dwelling had been ultimately unsuccessful.
Richard Langham (instructed by Sharpe Pritchard) appeared for the claimants; Lisa Busch (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first defendant; the second defendant appeared in person.
Eileen O’Grady, barrister
