Plans to extend listed building used as hotel — Whether plans satisfied special considerations laid down in Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act — Alleged inconsistency between inspector’s adverse decision on merits and his award of costs against planning authority — Extent to which decision letter should refer specifically to relevant rules of law and practice
The hotel owned by the applicant company was an 18th-century listed building situated in an area of outstanding natural beauty in the Chilterns. In 1989 the applicant had obtained planning permission to add a new wing to the building subject to compliance with various conditions designed to preserve its character and setting. In 1994 the applicant failed to obtain renewal of that permission and also failed to obtain the consent required by the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990. An appeal to the Secretary of State for the Environment was similarly unsuccessful, but was characterised by two decision letters, both issued by the inspector on the same day. The first (referred to as the “substantive letter”) rejected the appeal on its merits, pointing above all to the “mundane” character of the proposed new wing as shown in designs (themselves barely adequate) which accompanied the application. The second (the “costs letter”) nevertheless made an award of costs against the planning authority based on the finding that the authority had acted unreasonably in the process of reaching the decision appealed against.
In the present High Court proceedings, taken by the applicant to quash the decision reached in the first letter, both sides accepted that the soundness of that decision had to be adjudged, inter alia, in the light of section 16 of the 1990 Act whereby on application for listed building consent special regard must be had to the desirability of preserving the building or its setting or any features of special architectural or historic interest; section 66 of the same Act whereby regard to identical factors must be had in the exercise of planning functions as respects listed buildings; Circular 11/95 advised planning authorities that applications to renew planning permissions should normally be granted unless the failure to implement the earlier one has given rise to uncertainty.
Held The inspector’s decision should stand.
1. On a close examination of the two letters (which as agreed by the parties should be read as one), the substantive decision was not vitiated by its apparent inconsistency with the opinions expressed in the costs letter. The latter was solely directed at the conduct of the authority at a procedural level, notably its failure (at the applicant’s expense) to use its powers under section 10 of the Act to give advance notice of the degree of detail required in the architectural plans and drawings to be submitted for consideration. The inspector had not questioned the reasonableness of the substantive decision reached by the authority.
2. Questions of elegance aside, there was no legal requirement that the decision letter should display explicit links between the stages of reasoning and the relevant rules of law and practice. The careful criticism of the quality and character of the applicant’s plans was sufficient demonstration to the intelligent reader that the inspector was seeking both to apply sections 16 and 66 and to give effect to departmental policy as regards renewals.
Russell Harris (instructed by Franks Charlesly & Co) appeared for the applicant, Stocks Hotel; Timothy Mould (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first respondent, Secretary of State of the Environment; the second respondents, Dacorum Borough Council, did not appear and were not represented.
