Planning permission subject to time-limit — Works carried out to remove hedge and provide entrance — Inspector considers extent and degree insufficient to constitute a specified operation — Whether extent and degree relevant test — Whether proper test of referability to planning permission — Appeal allowed
The appellant is the owner of some rough unused land at Gray’s Lane, Ibstone, Buckinghamshire. In 1960 the appellant’s mother obtained outline planning permission to erect a dwellinghouse on the site. A further permission was granted in 1973 subject to a condition that the development commence within five years. In February 1974 some 12ft of hedge was removed to provide an entrance and an amount of surface earth was also removed in preparation for a driveway; no further work was done. In dismissing an appeal in 1990 against the refusal of the second respondents, Wycombe District Council, to grant planning permission for a house on the site, the inspector considered the previous planning permissions but decided that the 1973 permission had lapsed as no specified operations had been carried out. The works in February 1974 did not amount to specified operations. The appellant’s application under section 245 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 (section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990) to quash the decision of the Secretary of State for the Environment, by his inspector, was dismissed by Sir Graham Eyre QC (sitting as a deputy judge of the Queen’s Bench Division) on October 12 1990.
The appellant contended that the inspector had erred in concluding that development as defined by section 43(2)(d) of the 1971 Act (the specified operations) (section 56 of the 1990 Act) had not been carried out.
Held The appeal was allowed.
The inspector directed himself to the wrong question; in deciding whether a specified operation had been carried out the degree or extent of the work was not relevant; the question was whether however little it was, or however great it was, it was referable to the 1973 planning permission.
Malvern Hills District Council v Secretary of State for the Environment (1983) 263 EG 1190 applied.
Robert Carnwath QC (instructed by Bates Wells Braithwaite) appeared for the appellant; and Guy Sankey (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first respondent, the Secretary of State for the Environment. The second respondents, Wycombe District Council, did not appear and were not represented.
