Town and country planning – Conservation area – Demolition – Defendant local planning authority granting planning permission for demolition of house in conservation area – Planning application being made on standard planning application form rather than “enhanced” form for applications for demolition of unlisted building in conservation area – Claimant applying for judicial review – Whether application complying with statutory requirements – Whether defendants having jurisdiction to grant permission pursuant to application – Application dismissed
The defendant local planning authority granted an application by the interested parties for planning permission for the demolition of a house at 8 Wiveton Road, Blakeney, Norfolk (which was in a conservation area), and the erection of a modern replacement on the same site.
The application was made on a standard planning application form instead of the “enhanced” form provided on the defendants’ planning portal website for an application to demolish an unlisted building in a conservation area, which required the applicant to give details of the proposed demolition and an explanation of why it was necessary. However, the application in fact gave details of the proposed demolition and was accompanied by a design and access statement which explained why demolition was considered to be the only viable option.
The claimant, a company formed by local residents to channel their concerns over the defendants’ planning decisions, applied for judicial review of the decision to grant planning permission. It contended, amongst other things, that the use of the wrong form deprived the defendants of the necessary jurisdiction to grant permission for the demolition since the application did not comply with the requirement, in article 7(1)(a) of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015, that an application should be on a form published by the Secretary of State or a form to substantially the same effect. In any event, local residents had a procedural legitimate expectation, in the light of the material on the defendants’ website, that any application for demolition in the conservation area would be made using the correct form.
Held: The application was dismissed.
(1) The requirement in article 7 of the 2015 Order to apply for planning permission on a form published by the Secretary of State required the use of the form designed for the type of application being made, in circumstances where different forms were published for different types of application. Article 7(1) required not only the use of the published form but also the provision of the particulars specified or referred to in the form, and any other particulars required to describe the development which was the subject of the application. On the other hand, a form could be “substantially to the same effect” as the published form even if it did not make provision for the same information as was required by that form, provided that information was in fact supplied. Whether one form was to substantially the same effect as another invited a comparison between the effect of the prescribed form and the effect of the form used, and a consideration of the extent of the differences. In making that comparison it had to be relevant that the purpose of the form was to convey information. The appropriate comparison had to be between the form received by the local planning authority, containing the information which it contained, and the correct published form. A form which supplied the required particulars by reference to a separate document, such as a design and access statement, would not be defective. That acknowledgement could not be reconciled with the submission that the provision of all the information required for a particular type of application, but using an inappropriate form, would deprive the planning authority of jurisdiction to consider the application.
(2) In the present case, given what they had been told, it was inconceivable that the planning officers could properly have rejected the application as failing to provide the particulars demanded by article 7(1) and their own guidance. The form submitted by the interested parties, and its supporting material, were to the same effect as the enhanced form designed for an application to demolish an unlisted building in a conservation area. Any procedural legitimate expectation which might have existed in the mind of someone who had carefully picked their way through the relevant websites to discover the appropriate forms and their associated notes was therefore satisfied.
John Pugh-Smith (instructed by Greene & Greene, of Bury St Edmunds) appeared for the claimant; Clare Parry (instructed by Eastlaw, of Cromer) appeared for the defendants.
Eileen O’Grady, barrister
