Cases - Whitley & Sons v Secretary of State for Wales and Clwyd County Council
Record details
- Name
- Whitley & Sons v Secretary of State for Wales and Clwyd County Council
- Date
- [1992]
- Citation
- 3 PLR 72
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Planning control
- Summary
-
Planning permission was granted for the extraction of minerals subject to conditions about restoration, landscaping and a scheme of working, all of which reserved matters had to be agreed with the local planning authority (or, failing agreement, the Secretary of State) before working started. Development had to be begun by 30 November 1978. The developer made an application for approval of the reserved matters in July 1977. It was not until October 1978 that a decision was made by the planning committee - a rejection of the developer's proposals. This gave the developer about a month to obtain approval from the Secretary of State - a practical impossibility. The developer felt he had no alternative but to attempt to begin the development by commencing mining operations by 30 November. These works were limited and ended in early December. The Secretary of State approved the reserved matters in May 1982 and work in accordance with this approval commenced in September 1983. The local authority then took enforcement action claiming that the planning permission had not been validly implemented within the time limit.
Lord Justice Woolf confirmed the general rule that an operation in breach of condition cannot properly be described as commencing the development authorised by the permission. In this case, however, application for approval had been made within the time limits, that approval had eventually been given, and the operations were now immune from enforcement action (4 years having elapsed). In these circumstances the permission had been validly implemented. The same would be true if, although the operations were not immune, approval had been obtained prior to enforcement action.