Inspectorate refusing to entertain deemed planning application because of failure to pay fee – Appellant claiming exception applicable where fee paid in respect of an earlier planning application – Inspectorate disapplying exception because of certain deficiencies in earlier application – Appeal dismissed
In April 1993 the appellant (G) submitted, together with the requisite fee, a planning application in respect of executed work (the development) which had been the subject of enforcement notices issued in 1991 and 1992. Believing that the council were sufficiently informed, G furnished no plans and did not describe the proposed development where so required by the application form. In June 1995 further enforcement notices were issued. G appealed on various grounds but relied primarily on ground (a) of section 174(2) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (the Act), namely that the development was one for which permission ought to be granted, thus making a deemed application for permission: section 177(5). In a letter dated January 9 1996 the inspectorate, citing section 177(5A) of the Act, declared that the deemed application had lapsed because G had failed to pay the prescribed fee within a time-limit specified in earlier correspondence. In reply, G, pointing to his 1993 application and the fee paid therewith, claimed the benefit of Regulation 10(5) of the Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications and Deemed Applications) Regulations 1989 (as amended) which disapplied the lapse rule where the appellant had made a relevant planning application and paid the prescribed fee before the issue of the enforcement notice. The inspectorate, insisting that ground (a) would not be entertained, declared that because of its formal deficiencies the 1993 application could not be described, in the terms of the regulation, as an application for permission for “the development to which the enforcement notice relates”. At the subsequent inquiry the inspector refused to reopen the issue and confined his consideration to the remaining grounds which he found to be inadequate. G appealed, challenging the correctness both of the view taken by the Inspectorate and the refusal by the inspector.
Held The appeal was dismissed.
1. While a mere formal defect in the 1993 application would not have taken it outside regulation 10(5) there was on the facts insufficient material before the inspectorate to connect that application with the enforcement notice in issue. Since the failure to furnish plans had been exacerbated by the lack of information in the application form it was unnecessary to consider the effect of that failure in isolation.
2. The inspector had rightly refused to determine the issue afresh as no relevant power had been conferred upon him by Schedule 6 to the 1990 Act.
Martin Edwards (instructed by Leigh Day & Co) appeared for the appellant; Nathalie Lieven (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first respondent; the second respondent did not appear and were not represented.
