Application for planning permission – Council issuing leaflet encouraging members of public to speak at meeting of relevant committee – Whether wording of leaflet obliging council to inform member of public, wishing to speak, of date, time and place of meeting
The applicants lived in a house near an area of the Northumberland coast, designated an area of outstanding natural beauty. Between the house and the sea was an open space, the land. On July 2 1996 the planning committee of Alnwick District Council gave permission for the building of two houses on the land subject to a number of conditions which did not meet the objections of the applicants, who opposed any form of development “root and branch”. On receipt of due notice of the development, the applicants wrote a letter dated June 10 1996 to the council registering their strong objection on the grounds that the future dwellings were to be east of the building line approved for their bungalow. The director of planning, on receipt of that letter, replied and informed the applicants of the council’s policy of allowing oral representations at relevant planning committee meetings and included a copy of a leaflet providing details of the scheme. The applicants acknowledged receipt and wrote asking the council to confirm the date and time of the meeting as they would like to speak. The meeting to consider the application was set for Tuesday July 2 1996 and the council knew of the date at least a week in advance. The applicants had not given their telephone number in their letter of June 21 and no contact, either by telephone or letter, was made to them by the council. As a result the meeting took place without the applicants and the planning committee granted permission for the development. The applicants sought judicial review to quash that decision on the grounds that they had been given an entitlement and reasonable expectation, which had been frustrated by the failure of the council to do what they had undertaken to do.
Held The application was granted.
On a first reading of the leaflet it appeared that the burden rested on a member of the public who wished to speak at a relevant meeting to ascertain which of the council’s committees were to entertain the planning application. The leaflet invited members of the public to “make their views known to the relevant committee” which suggested that there was more than one committee. However, it was known in the Town Hall that there was only one committee of the council which dealt with planning applications and this was not a matter which would have been known to the general public. The purpose of the policy was not an internal policy for officers of the council, but had been produced for members of the public and therefore it was to be read as through the eyes of a member of the public. The fact that the applicants had not supplied a telephone number did not make the council’s task any easier, but did not take away their obligation to inform them, as they could have done by letter, of the date, time and place of the meeting.
David Brook (instructed by Sinton & Co, of Newcastle upon Tyne) appeared for the applicants; Richard Merritt (instructed by the solicitor to Alnwick District Council) appeared for the defendants.
