Judge quashes Limehouse Cut conservation area designation

The High Court has quashed the decision of Tower Hamlets’ London Borough Council to designate an area around Limehouse Cut, inner London’s oldest canal, as a conservation area, thwarting the demolition of the neo-Georgian former Poplar employment exchange. Ouseley J allowed a challenge by Trillium (Prime) Property GP, the owner of the property at 307 Burdett Road, which wants to redevelop the site for residential and office use. The council will have to reconsider the proposed designation. The judge found that an officer’s report, on which the council had partly based its decision in October 2009, was “misleading in a significant way” and had led the council members to ignore relevant considerations. He said that those members who had voted to protect the site were not aware that previous attempts to designate it as a conservation area had been refused and were not told of the true position of English Heritage, which had refused to list the property. He said that they “would have gained the impression that the designation was less contentious and more generally thought appropriate on its proper merits than it was”. He quashed the designation on that ground, but rejected the argument that the decision was unlawful, as having been made solely to protect the building from demolition. Although accepting that the “initial driving force” behind the conservation area proposal was to prevent the demolition, he found that, by the time the designation was made, it was generally thought that the qualities of the area justified the decision. He said: “The officers had come to the view that the area had a special interest that should be preserved, that 307 Burdett Road was part of that special interest and that its loss would harm the character and appearance of that area. That is a lawful approach.” Adding that the same was true of the council members’ decision, he added: “Designation had merit; it was needed to protect the area from the effect of demolishing a building which the cabinet thought had merit and should be protected.  That is not unlawful.” The designation was made as a matter of urgency on 7 October 2009, a week after Trillium gave six weeks’ notice of its intention to demolish the building after 9 November 2009. The judge said that the council had chosen not to consult Trillium or the owners of surrounding commercial properties. Trillium gave notice of its intention to demolish in September 2009, days after the strategic planning committee had refused planning permission to redevelop the site. Council officers had recommended approval. Trillium (Prime) Property GP Ltd v Tower Hamlets London Borough Council Administrative (Ouseley J) 4 February 2011 Martin Kingston QC and Peter Goatley (instructed by DLA Piper LLP) appeared for the claimant; Meyric Lewis (instructed by the legal department of Tower Hamlets London Borough Council) appeared for the defendant