An appeal for an equestrian workers dwelling which won with full costs against a local Council has taken an interesting and bizarre new twist.
The Planning Inspector, in allowing the appeal, imposed occupancy conditions as is the normal course of events. However the unfortunate Inspector, rather than customising the standard agricultural occupancy condition, simply used the national model without change. For a farm, this would have been quite acceptable but for an equestrian dwelling gave us and our client a permission that was practically useless! Farming and equestrianism being different legal uses.
Clearly a basic but fundamental error had been made, one that the Planning Inspectorate accepted full responsibility for. However PINS refused to correct the error and the only route open to the client was to go to the High Court to get the decision set aside. On behalf of the Government, the Treasury Solicitors have already conceded the case and a new planning inspector is expected to issue a corrected decision notice shortly.
Its not very often that a client has to apply to set aside a judgement that he has won and its a great shame that the Planning Inspectorate felt unable to exert a little common sense to correct what was patently a basic and simple mistake. The case highlights the need for precision in all aspects of planning work and just shows the consequences of even seemingly minor mistakes. The planning system is not renowned for its flexibility but the case illustrates that perhaps we have swung too far in a bureaucratic direction and perhaps lost our sense of balance and perspective.
