Applicants seeking determination of conditions to be attached to old mineral planning permission – Respondents determining conditions within agreed time extension – Notice to applicants being given outside agreed period – Whether permissions subject to applicants’ proposed conditions – Environment Act 1995 Schedule 13 para 9(9) – Application allowed
The three applicants owned land and/or mineral rights at Nook Beach, East Sussex. The respondent authority were the mineral planning authority (MPA) for that area. Substantial sand and gravel extraction had taken place at the site over a number of years, pursuant to two planning permissions dated December 1950 and January 1975. All three applicants applied under para 9(1) Schedule 13 to the Environment Act 1995, for a determination of conditions to apply to the two “old mineral permissions”. They set out their proposed conditions. Under para 9(9) of the Act, the MPA had three months, or any extended period agreed in writing, within which to determine the appropriate conditions. At the expiry of that period the conditions proposed by the applicants applied.
The applications led to a series of meetings and several agreed time extensions. At a meeting of the respondent’s committee on 22 April 1998, it resolved to attach conditions which substantially reflected those recommended by the director of transport and environment and which were more onerous than those proposed by the applicants. Notices in writing, setting out the conditions, were signed and posted to the applicants on 30 April 1998. In each case they were received on 5 May 1998. The applicants contended that they were not given notice of the determination of the conditions within the final agreed extended period, which expired on 30 April 1998. The applicants sought a declaration that the permissions were subject to the conditions proposed in their applications.
