A developer has won a planning appeal over a proposed retirement village in Devon.
Gallagher Ventures wants to build a 188-unit retirement village on the site of an old holiday park in Maidencombe, near Torbay.
Planning permission, which stipulated that work must start within three years, was initially granted in 2006 and updated in 2008. Some work was carried out in 2011.
Gallagher has been seeking a certificate of lawfulness of proposed use and development for the scheme.
Torbay Council refused, saying that the 2006 planning permission had lapsed and no lawful development had taken place relating to the 2008 permission.
Gallagher appealed and, in March, a planning inspector backed the council.
At the centre of the case is a dispute about whether the site of the 2008 permission was the same as the 2006 permission. If it was, the work done in 2011 stops the 2008 permission from lapsing.
And in a ruling handed down today (11 November), High Court judge Mrs Justice Steyn agreed that it did.
Even though a covering letter in the 2008 application suggests that the boundary of the site may be different from the 2006 permission, there are “numerous factors” that suggest the scopes of both permissions were the same.
“I therefore conclude that the site of the 2008 permission was the same as the 2006 site,” she ruled.
Gallagher Ventures Ltd v (1) Secretary of State for Housing Communities and Local Government -and-
(2) Torbay Council
Planning Court, sitting at the Cardiff Civil Justice Centre (Steyn J) 11 November 2021
