Cases - R v East Sussex County Council, ex parte Reprotech (Pebsham) Ltd
Record details
- Name
- R v East Sussex County Council, ex parte Reprotech (Pebsham) Ltd
- Date
- [2002]
- Citation
- 4 AII ER 58
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Planning control - Human Rights Act 1998
- Summary
-
Reprotech claimed that an officer's report to committee, or the committee's decision, constituted a determination, on the authority of Wells, that no planning permission was required to use a waste treatment plant to generate electricity.
The House of Lords held that the Wells case could be distinguished. (The committee in Reprotech did not actually decide whether or not permission was required.) More importantly, however, the House doubted the correctness of the Wells decision. And on the question of estoppel, not only did the House find no facts to justify an estoppel, but Lord Hoffman, delivering the unanimous judgment of the House, stated that 'it is unhelpful to introduce private law concepts of estoppel into planning law'. He preferred the public law concept of 'legitimate expectation' under which the denial of a legitimate expectation may amount to an abuse of power. This has advantages over estoppel in that the court can take account of the hierarchy of individual rights which exist under the Human Rights Act 1998. So, for example, the right to a home is accorded more protection than ordinary property rights. No legitimate expectation arose in this case.