Clear Channel United Kingdom Ltd, R (on the application of) v First Secretary of State & Anor

Under Regulation 8 of the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) Regulations 1992, discontinuance of an advertisement with deemed consent requires necessity to remedy substantial injury to local amenity or danger to the public. The decision-maker must assess the net visual effect of retaining or removing the advertisements, including any screening benefit and the prospect of imminent redevelopment. A decision letter should be read as a whole and in a common-sense manner. The decision-maker need not repeat the statutory test in every paragraph if the reasoning demonstrates that it was applied. In exercising functions under or by virtue of the planning legislation, special attention may be given to preserving or enhancing the character and appearance of a conservation area.

The claimant sought under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to quash an Advertisement Appeal Inspector’s decision dismissing its appeal against a discontinuance notice. The notice concerned four illuminated advertisement panels with deemed consent on a cleared site adjoining a listed public house within a conservation area.

The claimant alleged that the Inspector had applied the wrong statutory test, failed to consider the advertisements’ screening effect, gave irrelevant weight to their long continued display, provided inadequate reasons, and wrongly applied the conservation-area duty. The central issue was whether the Inspector’s decision lawfully established substantial injury to amenity and the necessity of discontinuance.

1. Application dismissed. The claimant was ordered to pay the First Secretary of State’s agreed and summarily assessed costs of £10,055.88.
2. Regulation 8 imposes a somewhat stricter threshold than refusal of express advertisement consent, since discontinuance requires necessity to remedy substantial injury to amenity or danger to the public. The Inspector correctly identified that test. His later use of terms such as “inappropriate” did not show that he had substituted a different test.
3. The decision letter had to be read as a whole and in a common-sense, rather than legalistic, way. The conclusion that continued display was substantially detrimental to amenity was materially equivalent to a finding of substantial injury. The Inspector was not required to repeat the statutory test in every succeeding paragraph.
4. The Inspector was entitled to treat the Secretary of State’s 1993 decision as the starting point and to give significant weight to its conclusion that the panels were unacceptable as permanent street features but acceptable temporarily. This did not rewrite the earlier decision. The passage of time and the panels’ semi-permanent character were relevant considerations.
5. The Inspector adequately addressed the claimant’s three principal arguments: little had changed; the advertisements screened ugliness; and redevelopment was intended shortly. He recognised the screening function, but found that much of the unsightliness was above the panels and that the displays drew attention to it. The intended redevelopment had no guaranteed timetable.
6. In deciding whether discontinuance was necessary, the Inspector was required as a matter of common sense to consider the net visual effect of retaining or removing the advertisements. He did so adequately.
7. The conservation-area duty in section 72 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 applied to a Regulation 8 decision. A decision under Regulation 8 was not made under the principal Act, but was made by virtue of it because the Regulations were made under the Act. In any event, Regulation 4(1)(a) permitted consideration of the locality’s historic and architectural characteristics and did not water down the obligation to give special regard to conservation-area preservation or enhancement.

The claim arose from the dismissal by an Advertisement Appeal Inspector of the claimant’s appeal against a discontinuance notice served by the London Borough of Islington under Regulation 8 of the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) Regulations 1992. The Administrative Court dismissed the section 288 challenge.