Planning Conditions

December 17th, 2018 by James Goudie KC

In Howell v Waveney District Council (2018) EWHC 3388 (Admin) Sir Ross Cranston said that a planning condition should be interpreted in the light of what a reasonable reader would understand it to mean in the light of the words “natural and ordinary” meaning and in the context of any other conditions and of the planning consent as a whole. Unlawful operations could not constitute the commencement of a development. The Court had to determine, first, whether a planning condition had been breached. The second stage was to consider whether it was a “condition precedent” in the sense that it required something to be done before development commenced. Development in contravention of a condition which was not a “condition precedent” did not render the development as a whole unlawful.

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