Source:	All England Reporter
Publisher Citation:	[2002] All ER (D) 226 (Jun)
Court:	Court of Appeal, Civil Division
Judge:	Pill, Potter and Judge LJJ
Representation	Richard Harwood (instructed by Richard Buxton, Cambridge) for the applicant.
	Reuben Taylor (instructed by Richard Lewis, Oxford) for the authority.
Judgment Dates:	27 June 2002

Catchwords

Town and country planning - Permission for development - Material consideration - Application for permission to develop listed building - Planning committee deferring application to seek amendments to design - Developer stating that unless original design approved only minimal maintenance to be carried out on listed building - Policy document relating to developments for which permission would not be granted on merits but would be granted because of value added to heritage asset - Planning committee approving development - Committee not considering policy document ||Whether committee having granted permission on development's own merits or on basis that it would improve listed building.

The Case

A potential applicant for judicial review in a case involving review of a local authority's decision to grant planning permission was entitled to seek information from an authority as to the procedures it had followed. An applicant could not know if he had an arguable case unless he did so, and it was undesirable to set in motion the process of litigation before an effort had been made to resolve the issue through pre-trial correspondence. However, the obligation to apply promptly remained a feature of the law and should not be ignored by applicants in the expectation that the word 'promptly' was a dead letter.

Practice Areas

• Dispute Resolution
• Local Government
• Personal Injury
• Property

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