Cases - Robert Barnes & Co v Malvern Hills District Council

Record details

Name

Robert Barnes & Co v Malvern Hills District Council

Date

[1985]

Citation

1 EGLR 189

Keywords

Planning control

Summary

The planning authority served enforcement and stop notices in respect of house building in the belief that the relevant planning permission had expired. The enforcement notice was quashed on the ground that the matters alleged in the notice did not constitute a breach. RB & Co sought compensation in the region of £500,000, a large proportion of which was based on the claim that capital was tied up in the site, which was locked up and could not be worked.

The Lands Tribunal accepted the authority's case that the stop notice came at a time when there was a serious recession in the business of residential development and that, even without the stop notice, it would have been in the interest of the company to delay work on the subject land until market conditions improved. A sum of £82,000 was awarded for interest on land acquisition costs, abortive expenditure, professional fees, and losses on a bungalow which became semi-derelict when the site was abandoned.