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Stancliffe Stone Company Ltd v Peak District National Park Authority

Judgment The Times Law Reports Cited authorities 17 Cited in 8 Precedent Map Related
Vincent
JurisdictionEngland & Wales
JudgeLORD JUSTICE CHADWICK,LORD JUSTICE GAGE,Lord Justice Chadwick,Lord Justice Buxton,Lord Justice Gage
Judgment Date17 June 2005
Neutral Citation[2005] EWCA Civ 747,[2005] EWCA Civ 241
Docket NumberCase No: A2/2004/1448,A2/2004/1448 (A)
CourtCourt of Appeal (Civil Division)
Date17 June 2005
Categories
Stancliffe Stone Company Ltd
Claimants/Appellants
and
Peak District National Park Authority
Defendants/Respondents

[2005] EWCA Civ 241

Before

Lord Justice Chadwick

Lord Justice Gage

A2/2004/1448 (A)

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)

ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT

ADMINISTRATIVE COURT LIST

(Mr Justice Moore-Bick)

Royal Courts of Justice

Strand

London, WC2

MR T MORSHEAD (instructed by Aaron & Partners) appeared on behalf of the Appellant

MR ANDREW FRASER-URQUART (instructed by Nabarro Nathanson) appeared on behalf of the Respondent

Mr A Martin appeared in person on behalf of the Parish Council

LORD JUSTICE CHADWICK
1

This application is made in proceedings in Stancliffe Stone Company Ltd v Peak District National Park Authority. Stancliffe Stone is a quarry operator. It holds on lease a number of quarries at Stanton Moor in the Peak District National Park. The authority is the mineral planning authority for the National Park. The quarries leased by Stancliffe Stone include Endcliffe and Lees Cross quarries and a neighbouring quarry, Dale View. It is common ground that there has been little or no mineral working at Endcliffe and Lees Cross since February 1982, if not before. The company now wishes to be able to re-open those quarries and work them.

2

The issue between the parties is whether the company is entitled to do that under a planning consent granted on 6 February 1952 by the Minister of Local Government Planning under the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and the General Development Order 1950—subject to new planning conditions under the provisions of Schedule 13 of the Environment Act 1995—or whether that consent is now spent. That issue turns on whether Endcliffe and Lees Cross quarries are to be treated as active or dormant sites for the purposes of Schedule 13 to the 1995 Act. That question itself turns, or turns primarily, on whether the letter by which the 1952 planning consent was granted is to be treated as granting a single consent in respect of a number of different sites or as granting a number of separate and individual planning consents in respect of several sites.

3

Stancliffe Stone sought determination of that question in proceedings commenced in the Queen's Bench Division in March 2002 under Civil Procedure Rules, Part 8. The proceedings sought declarations as to the true effect of the 1952 letter, and, in the alternative declarations that the authority had failed to give proper effect to the requirements of Schedule 13 to the Act. The claim form contained a request that the trial of those issues be expedited, for the reasons set out in paragraphs 30 to 32 of the statement of facts and the grounds. It was supported by a witness statement which explained that the point had to be decided urgently so that the company could get on with its business.

4

Those issues came before Mr Justice Moore-Bick in June 2004. His judgment was handed down on 22 June. He dismissed the claims in the proceedings. The effect, as things stand, is that Stancliffe Stone cannot rely on the terms of the 1952 permission in connection with Endcliffe and Lees Cross quarries. They may have to submit therefore to conditions imposed by reference to the planning and environmental needs of 2005 rather than those of 50 years ago. It is common ground that, if modern conditions are imposed, those are likely to be more onerous than of those imposed 50 years ago.

5

Stancliffe Stone filed an appellant's notice on 6 July 2004. Permission to appeal was granted by this court (Lord Justice Carnwath) on 4 August 2004. A date for hearing the appeal was fixed in the usual way. The appeal is listed—and has been listed for some time—for hearing on 3 and 4 March 2005; that is to say, at the end of next week.

6

We were told that negotiations have taken place between the aprties with a view to seeing whether a new planning consent in relation to Dale View Quarry might be granted upon terms which enabled Stancliffe to enter into a Section 106 agreement which extinguished any right to quarry at Endcliffe and Lees Cross. On 21 January 2005 the respondent authority decided to support an application to adjourn this appeal. Notice of that decision was given in the press and to local residents. This court came to hear about it for the first time as a result of a letter from the Stanton Parish Council of 2 February 2005. Neither the local authority or the appellants thought it sensible to tell the court themselves. They did that on 10 February after, I think, some prompting.

7

On 10 February 2005 an application was made to adjourn the hearing fixed for the end of next week for an indefinite period; but for at least two years. That application is made on the basis that it will take a period of two years for the appellant to make a further planning application for the extension of quarrying facilities at Dale View Quarry. If that planning application were successful, then it is said that, as part of the conditions that would be imposed in relation to extended quarrying at Dale View, the appellants and their freeholders would enter into a Section 106 agreement giving up any right to rely on the 1952 planning consent in relation to Endcliffe and Lees Cross. That would have the advantage, as it appears to the authority, of bringing to an end the possibility of any quarrying at Endcliffe and Lees Cross whether under the old 1952 consent or under new conditions imposed under Schedule 13 of the 1995 Act. There would therefore be a planning gain, in the sense that Endcliffe and Lees Cross quarries would no longer be capable of being worked; and the price of that gain would be further development at Dale View. That, of course, would all be in the future. It would depend upon the operation of the planning system in relation to any new application that was made.

8

Why, then, is it submitted that the hearing of this appeal at the end of next week should be adjourned? There seem to be two reasons. The first is that it is perceived by both Stancliffe Stone and Peak District National Park Authority that they would prefer to negotiate a future application for permission at Dale View against a background of legal uncertainty as to what the present position is at Endcliffe and Lees Cross, rather than against a position of legal certainty. The second reason is, I think, that the authority fear that if the appeal were to be allowed then Stancliffe Stone would no longer have any incentive to proceed with an application for additional quarrying at Dale View and the opportunity of bringing the prospect of quarrying at Endcliffe and Lees Cross would be lost. In other words, it is said that the public interest is promoted by prolonging a position in which nobody knows where they really are. The authority can deal with the quarrying company on that basis; and the quarrying company has an incentive to make its application because it cannot be sure that it will succeed on its appeal.

9

The prolongation of that position of legal uncertainty is opposed by the Parish Council, who have appeared through their chairman Mr Martin before us today. There was a Parish meeting at the beginning of February at which it was unanimously resolved that the interests of the inhabitants of the parish were likely to be served by everyone knowing where they were rather than allowing negotiations to take place against a position where nobody knew where they were.

10

The task for this court, on this application, as it seems to me, is to decide whether it is in the public interest as a whole that a state of legal uncertainty should continue. It approaches that task in circumstances in which the company originally came to the courts in order to have its rights determined as a matter of urgency; but has now decided that it does not want to have its rights determined as a matter of urgency because those rights were determined in a way that did not suit it on the last occasion.

11

There is no reason, as it seems to me, why the present proposals, if they have merit, could not have been made either before or at the time when the company first made its application to the High Court in April 2004.

12

What the company, supported by the authority, is now asking this court to do is to lend its assistance to prolonging a state of legal uncertainty in circumstances where the legal process was originally invoked to achieve certainty as a matter of expedition. That seems to me to be an unattractive application; and, for my part, I would dismiss it. I am not persuaded that the public interest is best served by the court deliberately refusing to decide an appeal in order that a state of legal uncertainty can continue. I take the view that it is the function of this court to decide matters that are before it expeditiously—so far as that can be done having regard to the other demands on its time—and it is not the function of this court to allow itself to be used as a counter in some negotiating process between a local planning authority and a planning applicant

LORD JUSTICE GAGE
13

I agree. What the court is being asked to do in this case is to adjourn this matter in what the parties express as the public interest. The public interest, so far as the parties are concerned, has to be viewed as somewhat subjective. As Mr Martin, the chairman of the Stancliffe Parish Council, has demonstrated, there may be other sides to the public interest. What the application leaves out is a wider public interest. The wider public interest is that the courts should be used to provide legal certainty in disputes and not uncertainty. Further legal certainty should be provided, in my view, with all due...

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