Consent Order for wrongly submitted certificate

This matter challenged a grant of permission to increase the height of a block of flats Greystoke Court, Ealing by a storey. The Claimant pointed out that errors in the application meant she and other relevant owners at the site were not notified and hence were materially prejudiced. Ealing Council consented to quash.

Section 65(2) Town and Country Planning Act 1990 requires inter alia that any person who is an owner to the land to which a planning application relates is given notice of the application in such manner as may be required by the development order in place: in this case the Town and Country Planning Act (Development Management Procedure) Order 2015 (DMPO).

Articles 13 and 14 of the DMPO required that the applicant serve a certificate with the application, either “Certificate A” confirming that they are the owner of the application site, or “Certificate B” that where they are not the sole owner, they have notified relevant owners. The applicant wrongly submitted ownership Certificate A with the application when they should have submitted Certificate B as there were other owners, who as a result were not notified. Our client was one of them – a “relevant owner” as a leaseholder of one of the flats, and was not notified. Our client had suffered material prejudice because had she been notified of the application, she would have meaningfully opposed the grant of planning permission, as could other leaseholders of Greystoke Court.

Following pre-action correspondence, Ealing Council consented to quash the permission on this basis. There were other issues forming part of the claim including: irregularities in the publication of the application, leading to our client, amongst others, not knowing of the application at all until permission had already been granted and contrary to various policies. Given the consent to quashing those did not come to Court.

This was a case where identifying a procedural technicality really made a practical difference.

Stephanie Hall acted as Counsel for the Claimant.