In Lawrence v Coventry (T/A RDC promotions) [2014] UKSC 13; [2014] PLSCS 65 the owners of a house had brought proceedings against the operators of a nearby motor sports stadium, claiming damages and an injunction, on the ground that noise generated by motor sports activities carried on at the stadium amounted to a nuisance.
When the case reached the Court of Appeal (see PP 2012/31) the court summarised the law in this particular respect in the following way. (1) A planning authority, by the grant of planning permission, cannot authorise the commission of a nuisance. (2) Nevertheless, the grant of planning permission followed by the implementation of such permission may change the character of a locality. (3) It is a question of fact in every case whether the grant of planning permission followed by steps to implement such permission does have the effect of changing the character of the locality. (4) If the character of a locality is changed as a consequence of planning permission being granted and implemented then (a) the question of whether particular activities in that locality constitute a nuisance must be decided against the background of its changed character and (b) one consequence may be that otherwise offensive activities in that locality cease to constitute a nuisance.
The Supreme Court, while accepting the first stated principle, found the remaining conclusions reached by the Court of Appeal on this issue unsatisfactory, both in principle and practice. The President stated that the grant of planning permission for a particular development did not mean that the development was lawful. All it meant was that a bar to the use imposed by planning law, in the public interest, had been removed. Furthermore, it seemed wrong in principle that, through the grant of planning permission, a planning authority should be able to deprive a property owner of a right to object to what would otherwise be a nuisance, without providing him with compensation, when there is no provision in the planning legislation that suggested such a possibility.
Accordingly, he considered that the mere fact that the activity which was said to give rise to the nuisance had the benefit of planning permission was normally of no assistance to the defendant in a claim brought by a neighbour, who contended that the activity caused a nuisance to his land in the form of noise or other loss of amenity. When granting planning permission for a change of use, a planning authority would be entitled to assume that a neighbour whose private rights might be infringed by that use could enforce those rights in a nuisance action.
John Martin
