Cases - Cynon Valley Borough Council v Secretary of State for Wales and Oi Mee Lam

Record details

Name

Cynon Valley Borough Council v Secretary of State for Wales and Oi Mee Lam

Date

[1986]

Citation

2 EGLR 191

Keywords

Planning control

Summary

Planning permission had been granted for a fish and chip shop. The use was then changed to an antique shop. It was contended, following Pioneer Aggregates, that the antique shop could revert back to a hot food shop because the planning permission for that use could not be abandoned.

The Court held that the permission was to change from use A to use B, not merely permission to use the property for use B for the indefinite future. Therefore the fish and chip shop permission was spent when it was implemented. If it were otherwise, such a planning permission would be indefinitely valid, and would resemble an 'unexploded bomb', liable to go off at any time when the owner chooses to revert to the use for which permission was given.

(Reversion to a hot food shop was permissible on a different ground.)