Manchester City Council v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government

Planning permission is construed objectively, by asking what a reasonable reader with appropriate planning knowledge would understand from the grant as a whole.

A mixed use of one planning unit falls outside the relevant use classes and cannot benefit from the same-class exception in section 55(2)(f). A grant which describes separate commercial units by distinct use classes identifies separate planning units. A limited description of permitted use does not itself prevent changes within a use class or changes authorised by the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 2015. Conditions may therefore be necessary to restrict such changes. On a statutory appeal on a point of law, the court may intervene where the decision-maker’s conclusion is legally unsustainable or contradicted by the true and only reasonable conclusion.

Manchester City Council served an enforcement notice alleging that a dwelling had been changed into four commercial units. On an appeal under section 174(a) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, the Secretary of State’s inspector granted deemed planning permission for the four uses but refused conditions limiting them, considering those conditions unnecessary.

The council successfully challenged that decision in the Planning Court. Julian Knowles J held that the inspector had erred in law: [2021] EWHC 858 (Admin). The Secretary of State appealed. The central issues were whether the decision letter authorised one mixed use or four separate planning units, and whether the proposed conditions were required to prevent further changes of use.

Lewison LJ gave the judgment, with Dingemans and William Davis LJJ agreeing. The Secretary of State’s appeal was dismissed.

1. The statutory appeal under section 289(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 was confined to a point of law. The court could not substitute its own planning judgment. It could intervene, however, where the decision-maker had proceeded on an incorrect legal basis or where the true and only reasonable conclusion contradicted the decision. The judge had therefore identified legal error rather than impermissibly re-exercising planning judgment. The approach was supported by Burdle v Secretary of State for the Environment [1972] 1 WLR 1207 and Edwards v Bairstow [1956] AC 14.
2. The decision letter had to be interpreted objectively. The natural and ordinary meaning of its words, read in context and against planning law, was the starting point and ordinarily the end point. The court should not create an ambiguity in order to deploy extraneous interpretive rules. The approach in Lambeth LBC v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government [2019] UKSC 33 and Melanesian Mission Trust Board v Australian Mutual Provident Society [1997] 2 EGLR 128 was applied.
3. A mixed use of a single planning unit does not fall within a use class and cannot benefit from section 55(2)(f). The distinction between a limited description of what a grant permits and a condition identifying what is prohibited remained material. The principles in Belmont Riding Centre Ltd v First Secretary of State [2003] EWHC 1895 (Admin), Fidler v First Secretary of State [2003] EWHC 2003 (Admin) and I’m Your Man Ltd v Secretary of State for the Environment (1998) 77 P & CR 251 were applied.
4. The repeated references in the decision letter to four commercial units, each identified by its own use class, and to each unit and the commercial uses in the plural, necessarily indicated four separate planning units. That construction was inconsistent with a single mixed use. In the absence of restrictive conditions, changes within the applicable classes and changes permitted by the General Permitted Development Order would not necessarily require permission. The inspector therefore erred in treating the proposed conditions as unnecessary.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): dismissed the Secretary of State’s appeal. [2021] EWCA Civ 1920.
• High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division, Planning Court: Julian Knowles J allowed the council’s challenge and held that the inspector had erred in refusing the proposed conditions. [2021] EWHC 858 (Admin).