Eastbourne Borough Council has succeeded in High Court moves to overturn a decision in November last year of an inspector appointed by the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport & the Regions (DETR) to allow a change of use of 19 South Cliff Avenue, Eastbourne from a private guesthouse to a private single dwelling.
The council maintained that the property, owned by Mr & Mrs Bryan and Patricia Batey, should be kept for tourist use and disputed the inspectors finding that continued tourist use was not appropriate on the basis that a viable economic return of 15% was unlikely to be achieved.
Craig Howell Williams, counsel for the local authority, said that there was a high demand for accommodation in this part of the borough, which is in the Intermediate Tourist Accommodation area, and that a relatively short supply of guesthouses indicated that the property had a healthy future in its current use with the addition of en-suite facilities.
He also argued that the inspectors decision had failed to take into account the possibility that the premises could be converted into self catering holiday accommodation which could offer a greater and more predictable return than a guest house.
However, James Maurici, counsel for the DETR, argued that the local authority had acted unreasonably in seeking to interpret financial viability differently from the expert chartered accountants employed by them and by accepting a lesser measure of viability that was more likely to be met.
Allowing the councils challenge, the judge said that inspector had failed to adequately take into account the willingness of those who run guest houses to accept a lower rate return than the commercial norm.
Eastbourne Borough Council v SSETR Queens Bench Division: Administrative Court (Keene J) 9 October 2000
Craig Howell Williams (instructed by Sharpe Pritchard) appeared for the applicant; James Maurici (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the defendants.
PLS News 10/10/00
