Sager House (Chelsea) Ltd v First Secretary of State
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | SIR MICHAEL HARRISON:,SIR MICHAEL HARRISON |
| Judgment Date | 26 April 2006 |
| Neutral Citation | [2006] EWHC 1251 (Admin) |
| Date | 26 April 2006 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | C0/1319/2005 |
[2006] EWHC 1251 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand London WC2
SIR MICHAEL HARRISON
C0/1319/2005
MR M HORTON QC (instructed by Blick and Company, London E1 7LJ) appeared on behalf of the CLAIMANT
MR P BROWN (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared on behalf of the FIRST DEFENDANT
MR J EASTON ( instructed by the Legal Department for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea )appeared on behalf of the SECOND DEFENDANT
Introduction
This is an application under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 by the claimant, Sager House (Chelsea) Limited, to quash a decision of the First Defendant, the First Secretary of State, made by his Inspector dated 20 January 2005 when he dismissed the claimant's appeal against the failure of the Second Defendant, the Council of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, to decide within the prescribed period its application for planning permission for the development of the site of a redundant electricity transformer station known as the Power House, Alpha Place in Chelsea. The proposed development involved the demolition and rebuilding of the buildings on the Chelsea Manor Street frontage of the site and the remodelling and extension of the Power House building itself to create 61 residential apartments with associated parking, amenity areas and a health suite at basement level.
Subject to the lodging of the claimant's appeal, the second defendant resolved that the proposed development would have been refused for the following two reasons:
1. The proposed extensions, and resulting height, bulk, scale and mass of the building constitute an overdevelopment of the site which results in harmful impacts on occupiers of adjoining properties in particular in terms of increased sense of enclosure and loss of privacy, contrary to policies set out in the 'Conservation and Development', 'Housing' and 'Leisure and Recreation' Chapters of the Unitary Development Plan, in particular Policies CD47, CD44, CD36, CD35, CD46, CD27, CD28, H19, H7, CD38, LR14, LR15 and LR40.
2. The resulting height, bulk/scale and mass harm views from the adjoining Cheyne and Royal Hospital Conservation Areas, contrary to policy set out in the 'Conservation and Development' Chapter of the Unitary Development Plan, in particular Policy CD63."
In paragraph 5 of his decision letter, the Inspector identified the two main issues as the impact the development would have on:
"a) the character and appearance of the locality, including with respect to its effect on the Cheyne and Royal Hospital Conservation Areas;
b) the living conditions of the occupiers of neighbouring residential properties."
The Inspector dismissed the claimant's appeal on the grounds that it would cause significant harm, firstly to the views from and the setting of the Royal Hospital Conservation area and, secondly, to the privacy and sense of enclosure of neighbouring residential properties. The Inspector's reasons for those conclusions are contained in a 12-page decision letter.
The grounds of the claimant's section 288 application run to some 33 pages containing 7 grounds, but with almost 100 different sub-grounds, several of which overlap. The claimant's skeleton argument runs to over 50 pages together with a 29 page appendix relating to discussions between the claimant's experts and Council officers prior to the inquiry. The application has generated a very significant amount of paperwork including a witness statement from one of the claimant's expert witnesses, Mr Cooper, running to 128 pages which is longer than his proof of evidence at the inquiry and which contains a significant amount of new evidence and diagrams which were not before the inquiry.
I find this approach to a relatively straightforward 12-page decision letter to be wholly unacceptable. It has resulted in a hearing lasting five—and-a-half days when it should not have taken more than half that time, even bearing in mind that a Wednesbury perversity argument was being raised on one of the two main issues. I do not propose to deal with all the points that have been raised but the proliferation of points does mean that this judgment necessarily has to be longer than would other otherwise have been the case.
I start by briefly describing the site and its surroundings. The site is bounded on the west side by Chelsea Manor Street, on the north side by Alpha Place and on the east side by a terrace of houses fronting on to Flood Street. To the south side lies Chesil Court which is a block of flats. The eastern boundary of the Cheyne Conservation Area comes up to the west side of Chelsea Manor Street opposite the appeal site, and the western boundary of the Royal Hospital Conservation Area comes up to the east side of Flood Street opposite the appeal site where Redesdale Street and Redburn Street run off Flood Street towards the east.
The proposed development includes the demolition and rebuilding of the existing buildings on the west side of the site fronting onto Chelsea Manor Street, and the remodelling and extension of the existing Power House building. The remodelling involves an extra storey together with a curved roof whilst the extension involves the demolition of some lower level transformer housing attached to the east side of the Power House and the extension of the Power House further to the east towards Flood Street Terrace which consists of 10 terraced houses comprising basement and four floors above, which back directly onto the appeal site with rear gardens about 7 metres deep. The eastern extension of the Power House would have an undulating facade with windows on the inner curves rather than the outermost parts so that the typical horizontal window to window distances between the development and Flood Street Terrace would be about 17–18 metres. The current eastern facade of the existing Power House building is about 24 metres from the windows of Flood Street Terrace.
There were lengthy discussions and negotiations over a period of about a year prior to the inquiry between the claimant's experts, Mr Gough, an architect, and Mr Cooper, a planning consultant and Council officers, in particular Mr Coey, the area planning officer, and Ms Benes, a senior planning officer in the design and conservation team. Those discussions led to a number of amendments being made to the scheme. The claimant's experts thought that Ms Benes was satisfied with the scheme so far as design and conservation area issues were concerned. However, a few weeks before the inquiry the claimant was served with the proof of evidence of Mr McCoy, a planning consultant, dealing with those matters on behalf of the Council because Ms Benes was on holiday at the time of the inquiry. As a result of concern being expressed by the claimant's experts, the Council served on the claimant a short statutory declaration made by Ms Benes stating that she agreed with both of the Council's putative reasons for refusal.
At the inquiry there was a considerable dispute about what had been agreed by Ms Benes, the Council claiming that she had agreed detailed matters of design but not issues arising from the bulk, height and massing of the proposed development including their effect on the views out of the Conservation Areas. There was also an objection on behalf of the claimant at the inquiry to the admissibility of Ms Benes' statutory declaration but the Inspector allowed it to be admitted into evidence.
I mention those matters because they are referred to in the grounds of this application. The only other matter that I should refer to at this stage is that the local residents were represented at the inquiry by counsel who called two expert witnesses, Mr Levrant, an architect and Mr de Lotbiniere, a planning consultant. The inquiry lasted a total of ten days from 27–30 July, 2–5 and 8 November and 13 December 2004. The Inspector, Mr Phillimore MA, MCD, MRTPI, carried out a site inspection on 8 November 2004.
In his decision letter, the Inspector, having set out the putative reasons for refusal and the two main issues, to which I have already referred, dealt with planning policy between paragraphs 6 to 18. Most of that section was taken up by referring to the policies of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Unitary Development Plan ('the UDP'), but paragraph 17 dealt with the 'Planning Guidelines' issued by the Council in 2003 relating to this site, to which the Inspector gave significant weight. That aspect forms the subject matter of the claimant's first ground of this application.
Between paragraphs 19 and 24, the Inspector described the site and its surroundings, followed by paragraphs 25 to 27 which described the proposal. Between paragraphs 28 to 37, the Inspector dealt with the first issue, namely the effect of the proposal on the setting of the Conservation Areas. His conclusions on that issue form the subject matter of the claimant's second and third grounds of this application.
Between paragraphs 38 to 49, the Inspector dealt with the second main issue, namely the effect of the proposal on neighbouring living conditions, in particular privacy and sense of enclosure. His conclusions on that issue form the subject matter of the claimant's fourth ground of this application.
The Inspector then dealt with some other matters between paragraphs 50 and 56...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Isaq v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government
...by Sir Michael Harrison (as he then was) in R on the Application of Sager House (Chelsea) Ltd v First Secretary of State & Anr [2006] EWHC 1251 (Admin) at paragraph 106, the inspector was not bound to accept everything the claimant's expert had said on these issues at the inquiry but was e......