Applicant applying for bridleway diversion order – Inspector refusing to make order – Whether applicant entitled to make representations to inspector – Schedule 6 to Highways Act 1980 – High Court refusing application for order quashing inspector’s decision – Court of Appeal allowing appeal
On February 1 1988 the applicant, the owner of Rydings Farm, Ockham, Guildford, Surrey (the farm), applied to Surrey County Council for a diversion order (the order) for a bridleway, which ran through the farm. The bridleway, with the right of access, passed through gates leading to the farm and then across a yard between the farm itself and a bungalow in which the applicant lived. It emerged on to Ockham Road North. The effect of the proposed diversion was to move the bridleway on to another track between some fields about 100 m away from the existing bridleway. The applicant agreed to pay the council’s costs of advertising the order, to carry out the necessary works if the order was made and to pay any compensation which might become payable.
The council gave notice of the bridleway order. An objector claimed that the proposed diversion would create a serious traffic hazard due to lack of visibility at the point of access to Ockham Road North and the council forwarded the objection to the Secretary of State for the Environment. The applicant wrote to the inspector indicating that she wished to make written representations. However she was informed that the only parties entitled to make representation to the inspector were objectors, although she could make representations to the council for inclusion in the council’s submissions. The applicant wrote to the council and they forwarded some of the applicant’s submissions to the inspector. The inspector decided not to confirm the order. The High Court dismissed an application to quash the inspector’s decision. The applicant appealed contending that she was entitled under para 2 of Part 1 of Schedule 6 to the Highways Act 1980 as a “person by whom any representation or objection has been made” to “an opportunity to be heard by a person appointed by [the Secretary of State] for the purpose” and that the council had not afforded her that opportunity. The council contended that a relevant “representation” for the purposes of the 1980 Act could only be made be a person objecting to an order.
Held The appeal was allowed.
1. For the purposes of Schedule 6 to the 1980 Act a “representation” in support of an order was still a relevant representation even where there was no objection to the making of the order. Accordingly, where a representation was made in support of an opposed order, the person making the representation had to be given the opportunity of being heard either at the local inquiry or by the inspector.
2. The applicant had been denied the opportunity of answering the objections made to the inspector and therefore it could be concluded that justice had not been seen to done and that there was a risk that her case had been prejudiced. Therefore there had been a breach of a natural justice.
Meyric Lewis (instructed by Davies Blunden & Evans, of Farnborough) appeared for the applicant; Timothy Corner (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the respondent.
