Redrow Homes Ltd. v First Secretary of State & Anor

An outline planning permission must be construed from its language, conditions and stated reasons, read as a whole and in context. Where it expressly permits an access to an existing public highway and contains no restriction on traffic classes, approval of reserved matters concerning location and construction details cannot impose a condition which substantially prevents the access’s ordinary vehicular use. A later change in traffic conditions may support formal revocation or modification procedures, but it cannot alter the meaning or scope of the permission already granted.

Redrow, owner of part of land covered by a 1957 outline planning permission for industrial and commercial development, sought approval of the location and detailed plans for an access at point 6C to the B4055. Following an inquiry, the Secretary of State approved the details subject to conditions confining the access to public service vehicles.

Redrow challenged that decision under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Sullivan J quashed the conditions, holding that they impermissibly modified the permission. The Secretary of State appealed. The central issue was whether condition 5, which reserved approval of location and detailed construction plans, authorised a restriction on the class of traffic using the permitted access.

Appeal dismissed with costs. Mummery LJ, with whom Maurice Kay LJ and Lord Slynn agreed, upheld Sullivan J’s order quashing the traffic restriction.

1. The construction of the 1957 permission was a question of law. It had to be determined from the permission, its conditions and stated reasons, read as a whole and in context. No extrinsic material was relied on.
2. The express grant authorised construction of an access at point 6C to the B4055, an existing public highway used by all kinds of vehicular traffic. A reasonable reader would understand that access to permit the normal traffic using that highway and seeking access to the extensive industrial and commercial development. Neither the grant nor condition 5 restricted traffic classes.
3. Condition 5 reserved only agreement on the precise location and approval of detailed construction plans. It did not authorise the Secretary of State to impose a condition confining the access to public service vehicles. The contrast with condition 6 was material: that condition expressly restricted the use of the different access at point 6B for the reception and despatch of goods.
4. The 2003 condition therefore modified and derogated from the all-purpose access granted in 1957. It could not be imposed through the reserved-matters approval process. Changed road and traffic circumstances might justify use of statutory procedures to revoke or modify the permission, potentially with compensation, but did not affect its construction.
5. Probern v Secretary of State [1990] 3 PLR 79 and R v Newbury District Council ex parte Chieveley Parish Council [1997] JPL 1137 concerned permissions leaving the scale of development or access as a whole for later approval. They did not govern this express grant of an access at a designated point. It was unnecessary to decide the statutory-definition issue or the human-rights points raised by Redrow.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Dismissed the Secretary of State’s appeal and upheld the quashing order: [2004] EWCA Civ 1375.
• Administrative Court (Sullivan J) On 3 December 2003, allowed Redrow’s application under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and quashed the Secretary of State’s decision to impose the 2003 traffic-use conditions.