Registration — Old mining permission — Mining continuing despite refusal to register — Enforcement notice — High Court dismissing appeal against refusal to register — Court of Appeal dismissing appeal
The appellants and their predecessors in title carried on mining operations at Cophurst Quarry, Lightwood Road, Lightwood, Stoke-on-Trent, since the beginning of the century. They obtained in 1947 permission under a general interim development order for the continuance of those operations (known as old mining permissions). Application was made to the council for the registration of the old mining permission under section 22 and Schedule 2 to the Planning and Compensation Act 1991, which provided for the registration of such permission and required that the application must specify the development claimed to be authorised by the permission including the land to which the permission related and the conditions (if any) to which the permission was subject. On such application, the authority could grant the application after ascertaining the information above and if satisfied that the permission authorised development consisting of the working of minerals. In other cases they could refuse the application. In the instant case, the mineral planning authority refused to register it on the ground that the interim development order permission was subject to a condition requiring the submission and approval of details of the proposed operations but no such details were ever submitted. The council then served an enforcement notice requiring that the mining operations on the land should cease. Two appeals were made to the High Court but the judge dismissed the appeal against the Secretary of State’s decision to uphold the refusal to register as well as the decision to uphold the enforcement notice. The appellants appealed. Under the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 (as modified) every planning permission granted or deemed to have been granted before April 1 1969 must be taken to have been granted subject to a condition that the development was begun not later than the expiration of 10 years beginning with that date.
Held The appeal was dismissed.
1. As a matter of statutory interpretation no working could be regarded as authorised unless either it was authorised by the permission without any requirement as to subsequent approval or, not being so authorised, had been approved in the manner applicable to that planning permission.
2. In the present case, the authority had before them an application which specified a large area of land to which the permission allegedly related. If one looked at the permission to see what was authorised one saw that mining operations were not authorised on any part of the site pending the submission of satisfactory details. None were submitted and so that mining operations before April 1 1979 were not authorised because none of those operations, to which the planning permission related, “had begun to be carried out”.
3. With regard to case law it was decided in R v Elmbridge Borough Council, ex parte Oaktimber Ltd [1991] 3 PLR 35 that, despite no enforcement action having been taken, a permission could not permit any physical developments without subsequent approval of details. The view was summarised in FG Whitley & Sons Co Ltd v Secretary of State for Wales [1992] 3 PLR 72 to the effect that if the operations contravened the conditions they could not properly be described as “commencing” the development authorised by the permission. It was upon these statements of principle that the decision was founded in the present case.
Jeremy Sullivan QC and Paul Stinchcombe (instructed by Kent Jones & Done, of Stoke-on-Trent) appeared for the appellants; Richard Drabble QC (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the Secretary of State; John Barrett (instructed by the solicitor to Staffordshire County Council) appeared for the mineral planning authority.
