A long-running legal dispute over plans to redevelop a Bexhill-on-Sea bowls club to provide sheltered apartments for the elderly, sets a “dangerous precedent” that could erode the position of Historic England, a lawyer told the Court of Appeal today.
Barrister Jenny Wigley, on behalf of her client Anne-Marie Loader, was asking the three-judge panel to overturn a ruling last year made by High Court judge Patterson J.
The case centres on plans to demolish a bowls club in the seaside town, and rebuild it along with around 40 sheltered flats. Loader has been fighting the plans, first mooted a decade ago, for years.
At a hearing last year, her lawyers successfully convinced Patterson J that the council had failed to consult English Heritage (now Historic England) about the development. However the judge found against them and exercised her discretion not to quash planning permission saying that, even if English Heritage had been properly consulted, it would not have altered the outcome.
In written arguments, Wigley criticised this finding on “an important point of principle”.
“It is submitted that the upholding of planning permission in these circumstances sets a dangerous precedent which sends a message that a local planning authority can freely substitute legally required statutory consideration with in-house consideration,” she said.
“The decision, in this case, denudes the statutory requirement of legal effect and ignores the legal status accorded to the views of statutory consultees.
“While the learned judge found that there had been comprehensive evaluation of the design, including comments from the defendant’s own expert conservation and design officer, this cannot be substituted for seeking (and paying due regard to) English Heritage’s expert views where there is a statutory duty to do so,” she said.
However barrister Hugh Flanagan, for Rother District Council, said the claim should be dismissed. He said, also in written arguments, that “significant heritage expertise” had been sought, English Heritage didn’t necessarily require notification, and that English Heritage has now been notified and has said it doesn’t want to comment on this development.
“Given English Heritage’s published policy and established practice, it can safely be assumed that English Heritage would not have provided a substantive response even if the notification had been given,” he said.
Anne Marie Loader v Rother District Council, Court of Appeal (Laws LJ, King LJ, Lindblom LJ) 18 May 2016
