Stancliffe Stone Company Ltd v Peak District National Park Authority

Where a mineral planning authority has placed quarries on the first list under Schedule 13 to the Environment Act 1995, a private-law declaration cannot later be used to permit mineral development which the statutory scheme makes unauthorised. A challenge to the composition or classification of the list is a public-law challenge which should be brought promptly by judicial review, before the statutory dates for applications and condition-setting. The presumption of regularity is evidential. It cannot rewrite a list whose contents are known or convert a construction issue into a question of fact. An appellate court should be cautious about substituting its impression on an honestly uncertain construction issue, although that issue need not be finally resolved where the proceedings fail as an abuse of process.

Stancliffe, the leasehold owner of Endcliffe and Lees Cross Quarries, sought declarations concerning the planning status of six quarries covered by a ministerial letter dated 6 February 1952. The Peak District National Park Authority had listed Endcliffe and Lees Cross as a dormant site and the other quarries as active sites under Schedule 13 to the Environment Act 1995.

The High Court held that the 1952 letter granted four separate planning permissions and dismissed the claim: [2004] EWHC 1475. Stancliffe appealed, contending that the letter granted one permission covering a single active site and that declaratory relief could overcome the 1996 list. The central issues were the construction of the 1952 letter, the effect of the list, and whether a private-law action could bypass a long-expired public-law challenge.

Disposition

1. The appeal was dismissed unanimously. The declarations sought could not be granted while the 1996 list remained in its existing form.

2. Under paragraphs 12(3) and 12(4) of Schedule 13 to the Environment Act 1995, the 1952 permission no longer authorised mineral development at Endcliffe and Lees Cross. That was so whether those quarries were treated as a separate dormant site or as part of a larger composite site omitted from the list.

3. The court could not make a declaration which purported to permit conduct which Parliament had clearly intended to forbid. To obtain the relief sought, Stancliffe first needed to set aside or otherwise go behind the 1996 list. That was a public-law challenge requiring judicial review, but no such application had been made.

4. The list was intended to be a definitive document on which landowners and members of the public could rely. A challenge to the grouping of quarries or to their classification as active or dormant therefore had to be brought promptly, preferably before the dates for applications and condition-setting. An ordinary civil action brought about eight years later could not circumvent the judicial review procedure and was an abuse of process. The court distinguished Mouchell Superannuation Fund Trustees [1992] 1 PLR 97, Earthline Ltd [2003] 1 P&CR 24 and Tarmac Heavy Building Materials UK Limited (1999) 79 P&CR 260 only in the relevant context: those cases concerned individual planning conditions, with no equivalent wider public reliance.

5. The presumption of regularity described in Calder Gravel Limited (1989) 60 P&CR 322 was an evidential presumption applicable where relevant facts could no longer be proved. It could not be used to give a known list a meaning contrary to its natural meaning.

6. The judges differed in emphasis on the construction of the 1952 letter. Chadwick LJ and Gage LJ were not prepared to hold that the judge’s conclusion of four permissions was wrong, given the genuine uncertainty and the absence of a plainly correct answer. Buxton LJ considered that construction of a document creating legal rights had one legal effect and that an appellate court must declare the correct construction if persuaded that the judge was wrong. The issue did not require final determination because the proceedings failed in any event on public-law and abuse-of-process grounds.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): On 17 June 2005, dismissed the appeal. The court held that the declaratory action could not bypass a prompt judicial review challenge to the 1996 mineral-sites list.
• High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division: On 22 June 2004, Mr Justice Moore-Bick dismissed the claim. He held that the 1952 letter contained four separate planning permissions and that Endcliffe and Lees Cross were properly treated as a dormant site: [2004] EWHC 1475.