PP 2013/10 Personal permission may be granted where special planning grounds can be demonstrated

In AZ v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government [2012] EWHC 3660 (Admin); [2103] PLSCS 8 the claimant, who suffered from an extreme psychiatric condition, applied successfully under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (“the Act”) to quash the decision of an inspector on appeal refusing planning permission for the stationing of two mobile homes on land in the Green Belt. One of the claimant’s grounds raised issues relating to the use of (1) personal planning permissions, i.e. permissions incorporating a condition restricting the use of the development to use by a particular occupier or class of occupier and (2) so-called “temporary” planning permissions, i.e., permissions incorporating a condition requiring the development or material change of use to be discontinued at the expiry of a stated period of time. Section 75(1) of the Act, which enacts the basic principle that planning permission endures for the benefit of the land and all persons for the time being interested in it, expressly recognises the concept of a personal planning permission. Section 72(1)(b) of the Act allows the imposition of a condition requiring the removal of permitted buildings or works, or the discontinuance of any authorised use, at the end of a specified period and the carrying out of reinstatement works. Circular 11/95: The Use of Conditions in Planning Permissions advises that a personal planning permission should only be granted where special planning grounds can be demonstrated, and the alternative would normally be refusal of permission. (An example might be where there are strong compassionate or other personal grounds.) It also advises that temporary planning permission may be justified where the development proposal relates to a building or use that the applicant is expected to retain or continue only for a limited period. (This may be because the applicant has expressly volunteered that intention or because it is expected that the planning circumstances will change in a particular way at the end of that period.) The claimant’s contention in this respect in AZ was that the inspector had failed properly to consider the grant of personal planning permission and/or temporary planning permission. The court accepted that contention, holding that the inspector had indeed failed to consider a personal condition and had erroneously limited her consideration of a time-limited condition to the possibility of a change in the claimant’s psychiatric condition. John Martin