Months after reinstating the planning permission, the Court of Appeal today blocked a renewed attempt to challenge plans to convert the former home of Lord Beaverbrook in the Surrey countryside into a millionaires’ luxury golf course.
In May, Richards LJ overturned a high court ruling by Haddon–Cave J and reinstated the permission granted for redevelopment of the Grade II listed Cherkley Court, which the first Lord Beaverbrook bought in 1911 and lived in until his death in 1964.
However, the Cherkley Campaign pursed a separate challenge to Mole Valley district council’s decision to approve the landscape and ecology management plan that was a condition of the planning permission.
It claimed that, in approving this LEMP in March 2013, the council failed to treat it as a development consent that required separate environmental scrutiny, as it was based on materially different information from the initial planning application.
However, in September Jay J refused to grant permission to seek judicial review of the LEMP decision, on grounds of delay and abuse of process. He found that the claim covered similar ground to that in the earlier proceedings.
Today, Aikens LJ upheld that decision, and refused permission for the case to proceed, finding that the judge’s reasoning on delay had been “impeccable” and that he had been right to find the claim an abuse of process.
He said that the Supreme Court has now refused permission to appeal in the challenge to the planning permission.
Longshot Cherkley Court Ltd beat two private buyers seeking to use the property as a home when it bought the estate from the Beaverbrook Foundation for £20.3m in April 2011. Longshot was granted planning permission in September 2012 for the high-end golf course, hotel, health club and spa.
Cherkley Campaign Ltd v Mole Valley District Council Court of Appeal (Aikens LJ) 27 November 2014
