R (Usk Valley Conservation Group) v Brecon Beacons National Park Authority
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | MR JUSTICE OUSELEY |
| Judgment Date | 18 February 2010 |
| Neutral Citation | [2010] EWHC 71 (Admin),[2010] EWHC 2481 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | CO/1106/2009 |
| Date | 18 February 2010 |
[2010] EWHC 2481 (Admin)
Before: Mr Justice Ouseley
CO/1106/2009
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Mr Ross Fenton appeared on behalf of the Claimant
Miss Mary Ellis QC and Mr Robin Creen appeared on behalf of the Defendant
Mr Ian Albutt appeared on behalf of the Interested Parties
: On 27 January I handed down judgment in this matter. Today I have heard argument in relation to costs which has not been an entirely easy issue to resolve. What was at issue was a planning permission granted by the defendant which the interested parties were exploiting, the lawfulness of which the claimants challenged. There was also a challenge to decisions made by the defendant National Park Authority (NPA) as to how to deal with the consequences of breaches of planning control and concerns about the validity of the permission.
The problems arise because although the claimants were successful in obtaining the quashing of the planning permission, the NPA, as from no later than the service of the acknowledgement of service, effectively conceded that the permission should be quashed and the necessary extension of time granted and thereafter generally succeeded on the points it took by way of defence to the other claims raised. The interested parties, who contested the validity of the permission and the granting of relief after so long a time, lost on those issues, were not concerned in the 2008 issues, but succeeded in an issue which took up a great deal of time and costs, namely whether they had been fraudulent in the planning application that was made and indeed whether the planning application was invalid at all, which was an issue to which a lot of the documentation and evidence was directed. So the claimant succeeded but succeeded having spent a good deal of time on points on which they lost that were discrete and unnecessary for the purposes of proceedings and did not of themselves have any general public law points of importance save in relation to Alnwick.
The claimant seeks the payment of its costs from the National Park Authority and - to the extent that it does not get them from the National Park Authority - seeks that the interested party should pay them, suggesting that it is the National Park Authority which is principally liable because it was the National Park Authority's mistakes in handling the planning application which had been the genesis of the proceedings which had to be brought in order to get the permission quashed. They also regarded themselves as successful in relation to the 2008 decision because they had succeeded in one of their arguments which had led to a declaration that the decision of November was unlawful.
Miss Ellis QC, for the NPA, submits that save for the costs up to the service of the acknowledgement of service it is the NPA which should receive its costs from the claimant because it won on all the arguments on which it contested the proceedings. Mr Albutt, for the interested parties, submits that the appropriate approach is that there should be no order for costs as between the interested parties and the claimant or, alternatively, if there were to be some blame - which the claimants attribute as to twenty-five per cent to the interested parties - they should pay only half of those costs.
Each of these arguments, as well as making no order as to costs, have something to be said for them save the claimants’ argument that it should get essentially all its costs which would be an injustice.
I have concluded that the right approach to these costs is, first of all, to split - and in my judgment they split quite readily - the costs associated with the quashing of the 2005 permission from the costs associated with the declaration in relation to the November 2008 decision. The claimant shall be paid by the National Park Authority its costs to the period of one month after the acknowledgement of service. I say that to give the claimants some time in which to consider their position and decide how to respond after receiving that acknowledgement of service. Thereafter it would be unjust for the National Park Authority to have to pay any of the 2005 issue costs to the claimant. I do not accept the simple argument that because the problem is largely the NPA's in its inception that that should continue through the process of litigation which it conducted entirely properly and in a manner designed not to do other than provide assistance to the process of quashing the permission provided that it did not lose on issues of importance to it on which in fact it won.
The next question is whether the NPA should receive its costs from the claimant in relation to the costs thereafter of dealing with the 2005 matter. I have concluded, with some hesitation and reluctance, that it would be unjust to require the claimants to pay the National Park Authority's costs in relation to that although I need to return to that point when I come to the 2008 case. My reasons are that the NPA really had to attend the hearing as a responsible authority and had to incur some costs - behaving as a responsible authority - in providing some information to the claimants which it did in the form of witness statements and other disclosure. I found the claimants’ approach to this unappealing, at least in so far as they sought to lay at the National Park Authority's door the costs, essentially, of pursuing the validity of the application point on which it signally failed.
But it would not be right for the claimants - who have won what to them is the crucial point in the battle, namely the quashing of the permission - in effect to be significantly out of pocket because of the points they took. There was a...
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Power to Make Non-material Changes to, or Otherwise Revoke or Modify, Existing Planning Permissions and the Liability of a Local Planning Authority to Pay Compensation
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