In R (on the application of XPL Ltd) v Harlow Council [2014] EWHC 3860 (Admin); [2014] PLSCS 328, the local planning authority (“LPA”) had earlier granted planning permission to the claimant to use a parcel of land forming part of an industrial estate as a “coach park/depot”. Condition 4 attached to the planning permission provided that “no repairs or maintenance of vehicles or other industrial or commercial activities (other than the parking of coaches or similar vehicles associated with the coach park/depot)” should take place outside stated permitted hours. One of the reasons given for the imposition of this condition was to ensure that the amenity of neighbouring residents was not prejudiced.
Following complaints about engine noise in the early hours of the morning – and outside the stated permitted hours – the LPA served a breach of condition notice (“BCN”) on the claimant requiring it to cease the running of engines of any passenger carrying vehicles at the site and associated with the coach park/depot, except where the vehicles were being moved onto the site to park, outside the stated permitted hours.
The claimant sought judicial review of the LPA’s decision to serve the BCN on the principal ground that the BCN was unlawful, because it required activities to cease that were not prohibited by Condition 4. More specifically, it contended that starting up of the engine of a coach or bus outside the stated permitted hours did not fall within the meaning of the words “or other industrial or commercial activities”. Those words should be construed in the context of the preceding words “repairs or maintenance” in accordance with the eiusdem generis rule.
The court dismissed the claim, holding that the BCN was lawful. Earlier authorities established that a planning permission and its conditions had to be read as a whole and be given the meaning that a reasonable reader would give them without any special knowledge. The wording of Condition 4, when so read, was wide enough to cover the activity of starting the engine of a bus or coach in readiness for its use, whether the engine was started to carry out necessary checks or simply to prepare the vehicle to depart.
Furthermore, given the nature and function of planning permissions and their conditions, it would not be appropriate to employ the eiusdem generis rule here. (No case had been cited to the court where it had been used in this context.) It was primarily relevant to statutory interpretation. A reasonable reader would not be versed in the niceties of statutory interpretation.
John Martin is a planning law consultant
