Category: Rights of light

Build, Build, Build* (*Terms & Conditions Apply)

The Government is about to announce two major proposals for significant deregulation of the planning system by way of amendment of the Use Classes Order and the General Permitted Development Order. According to Robert Jenrick’s 30 June 2020 letter to MPs:

“I will create a new broad category of ‘commercial, business and service’ uses which will allow commercial, retail and leisure uses greater freedom to adapt to changing circumstances.”

(“In undertaking this reform, I recognise that there are certain uses which give rise to important local considerations; for example to ensure local pubs and theatres are protected, or to prevent the proliferation of hot food takeaways or betting shops”).

There will also be “… a new permitted development right to encourage regeneration and put empty buildings back to good use. This will serve to bring forward additional much needed homes and boost investment opportunities for the construction industry.

The right will allow free-standing vacant and redundant commercial and residential buildings to be demolished – and rebuilt as residential use within the footprint of the existing building. I recognise that development in certain locations requires individual consideration and therefore, I propose that the right does not apply, for example, in national parks and conservation areas or to listed buildings.”

The reforms, due to come into law in September, follow on from those contained in the Town and Country Planning (Permitted Development and Miscellaneous Amendments) (England) (Coronavirus) Regulations 2020, which were laid before Parliament on 24 June 2020 and which were summarised in my 26 June 2020 blog post New Planning Legislation! A Detailed Guide. The most radical of these measures was the creation of a new “building upwards” permitted development right: “works for the construction of up to two additional storeys of new dwellinghouses immediately above the existing topmost residential storey on a building which is a purpose-built, detached block of flats”.

My Town colleagues Lida Nguyen, Rebecca Craig, Victoria McKeegan and Meeta Kaur have created a flow chart to describe how the new “building upwards” right will work, when it comes into law on 1 August 2020. It is not straight-forward:

The new rights will of course be equally complex to navigate. The complexity of dealing with any use classes or permitted development rights question is accentuated for those without an expensive subscription to a legal updating service: the Government still does not provide access to up to date consolidated versions of secondary legislation and so it is extremely difficult for non-professionals to navigate the inevitable regulatory trip hazards.

Many of us of course continue to query whether the new right should have been further constrained – that the flow diagram is too simple (leading one to wonder perhaps whether the traditional planning application route isn’t quite so unwieldy after all…). Clive Betts, chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, set out a number of specific questions in his 8 July 2020 letter to MHCLG Minister of State Christopher Pincher:

⁃ “What will the Government do to ensure that basic standards, including minimum room sizes and guarantees of amenity space, will apply to new PDRs.”

⁃ “What will the Government do to ensure that local authorities do not, as a consequence of new PDRs, miss out on the funding they need to provide vital infrastructure and affordable housing for their communities?”

⁃ (With reference to the proposed Building Safety Bill, which will implement a new fire safety regime) “Could you confirm…that where a building is extended in height above 18 metres (or six storeys) through the new PDR, that it will then fall under the scope of the new building safety regime?”

⁃ “What rights will local authorities have to object to a scheme which damages the local streetscape?”

⁃ “How will the rights of existing business, e.g. pubs and restaurants, be protected to ensure that they can continue to operate in an area changing its mix of development?”

⁃ “What research has the Government undertaken into the potential impact on leaseholders of these changes and what protections will the Government put in place to ensure that they are not financially disadvantaged as a consequence?”

(We now have further detail in relation to the proposed Building Safety Bill, referred to in that third bullet point. MHCLG has published its 18 July 2020 press statement Landmark building safety law to keep residents safe and accompanying guide, although until we see the draft Bill on 20 July we will not have the answer to that question as to whether the duties in the Bill will apply to development carried out by way of permitted development rights, which personally I would guess that surely they would but we shall see…).

Aside from those substantive concerns, which will equally apply to the proposed “demolish commercial to replace with residential” permitted development right, there are inevitably a number of uncertainties as to various aspects of the “building upwards” right. For instance:

⁃ Does the existing building have to be entirely in residential use? What if, say, there are any commercial units on the ground floor?

⁃ How is the adequacy of natural daylight to be determined? This cannot be allowed to turn into inconclusive debates as to “BRE compliance” given the flexibility urged in the BRE guidance itself as to application of its tests.

⁃ What is the scope for the local planning authority to refuse prior approval on the basis of effect on amenity, overlooking, privacy and loss of light? If any exercise of the right would lead to one or more of these problems, due to the inherent circumstances of the building, can the local planning authority refuse permission even if that thwarts the owner’s ability to rely on the right?

⁃ What amounts to “completion” and what are the practical implications of the development having been substantially carried out but not completed by the three years’ deadline?

Any project to construct additional storeys onto an existing block of flats also of course brings all manner of private law complexities: a minefield of landlord and tenant, building management, private nuisance and rights to light issues for example. It is often not the need for planning permission that scuppers the proposal.

Don’t just listen to me: it’s worth reading the Government’s own Regulatory Policy Committee’s lukewarm endorsement of the impact assessment accompanying the 24 June changes. The assessment had estimated that the “building upwards” right could lead to approximately 81,000 homes being built above existing structures. I would be astonished.

Simon Ricketts, 18 July 2020

Personal views, et cetera

(Rights Of) Light Relief: Section 203

Section 237 must be one of the best known sections of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, beloved of planning lawyers – as for once we can be useful to our property colleagues.
Section 237 of course ensures, after an appropriate amount of detailed lawyering, that development can proceed without risk of injunctions from those whose easements (eg rights of light) or other rights (eg the benefit of restrictive covenants) may be affected. Where a local planning authority acquires an interest in land for planning purposes, or, where it already holds the interest, “appropriates” it for those purposes, interference with those interests or rights gives rise only to compensation rather than any risk of an injunction.

Although perhaps no surprise given the fact that the procedure is more than 50 years old, dating back to at least the Town and Country Planning Act 1962, it is very light in terms of process. Despite its effect being the removal of third parties’ private law entitlement to injunct against infringement of their rights, there is:

– no express requirement to consult with or even notify those potentially affected

– no statutory register to check where it has been used (see eg the ICO’s decision following a refusal in 2015 by Westminster City Council to provide information as to the occasions in which it had used section 237)

– no right on the part of those affected to object or have their grievances considered by an independent body, even though, because compensation is assessed on the basis of dimunition of value of their interest as a result of the interference (which will usually be less than the level of damages or settlement payout they could have secured in lieu of an injunction) the financial implications can be significant.

The power is useful in conjunction with use of an authority’s compulsory purchase powers, to ensure that, once land for development has been compulsorily acquired, problems will not arise through third party rights over the land acquired. However, nowadays the power is often used by authorities who are not looking to acquire land in their own right but rather looking to de-risk a development, hand in hand with a developer’s negotiations with those whose rights of light and other rights and easements may be affected – the approach of the courts to rights of light infringements still being difficult to predict (eg recently the Court of Appeal in Ottercroft Limited v Scandia Care Limited and Rahimian). The authority will proceed on the basis of an agreement by the developer to underwrite the authority’s compensation liability and (where the authority does not already have a legal interest in the development site) arrangements for the authority to acquire a freehold or leasehold interest in the development site – usually for a limited period of time and structured to minimise unnecessary risks and SDLT liability, prior to the interference occurs. 

Most recently the Corporation of London’s April 2016 decision to use the power to assist the development of 22 Bishopsgate attracted much publicity, possibly due to the nature of the scheme, which will become the City’s tallest building, rather than anything unusual about the use of section 237. 


Since 13 July 2016 the section 237 mechanism has been replaced by the similar (but slightly different!) power in Section 203 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016. 

The main changes between section 237 and section 203 are that:

• section 203 can be utilised not just by local planning authorities but other bodies with compulsory purchase powers, including statutory undertakers;

• in order to rely on the power, the authority must show that it “could acquire the land compulsorily” for the purposes of carrying out the development;

• there is an express exclusion in relation to easements or rights enjoyed by the National Trust;

• the new section expressly limits the power to situations where the development that creates the interference is related to the purposes for which the land was acquired or appropriated (a gloss upon section 237 that had been established by Midtown Limited v City of London Real Property Company Limited ). 

It is odd that once the decision was taken to update the section 237 procedure, more was not done to resolve the uncertainties that surround its operation, particularly given that by definition its use is usually contentious, being designed to affect the relative negotiating strength of potential litigants. The uncertainties are well described in a 2011 paper by Neil Cameron QC. 

The “could the authority acquire the land compulsorily?” test in section 203 is bound to lead to litigation. It was an open question under section 237 as to whether, before using acquiring or appropriating, the authority had to meet the same public need tests as would need to be satisfied were it to compulsorily acquire the land and as to whether consultation and negotiation was first required with those whose rights were to be affected. The main judicial authority for that position is a first instance ruling by McCullough J in R v Leeds City Council ex p Leeds Industrial Co-operative Society Limited, 1997. That, and the enactment of the Human Rights Act 1998, has led to additional caution as to the steps to be taken before invoking the procedure, including:

– identifying those likely to be affected

– seeking to resolve matters by negotiation, potentially on the basis of a more open discussion that one based solely on diminution in value as the basis of any settlement

– consideration by the authority of whether there is a compelling case in the public interest for use of the power and whether the tests in section 226 (compulsory purchase of land for planning purposes) are made out

– ensuring that there is the authority gives reasonable publicity to its decision to rely on the power (so as reduce the risk of a claim for judicial review of the decision being allowed out of time). 

Care is also needed in determining the structure for granting the authority an appropriate interest, so as to ensure that there can be no complaint about state aid or disposal of land at an undervalue (when the authority is called upon to relinquish its interest). 

The gnomic drafting of section 203 will continue the debate as to just how much needs to be done in order for the procedure to be legally effective. 

Simon Ricketts 26.8.16

Personal views, et cetera