Litigants in person allowed to amend application outside time limits

Local residents who objected to a planning permission as a litigant in person have been granted an extension beyond the six-week time limit after instructing lawyers.

Last July, Sandra San Vicente and Gerald Carden challenged outline planning permission allowing builder Taylor Wimpey to build 100 homes just outside Great Dunmow in Essex.

Their initial argument was "doomed to fail", the High Court said at an earlier hearing, because it essentially challenged the merits of the application.

But last week Lord Justice Beatson allowed the applicants to substitute a new ground after the six-week time limit, saying that because the time limit was short, "it is likely that any amendment to a challenge launched within that period will be made outside it".

For barrister Annabel Graham Paul, who represented the claimants, the case showed that "notwithstanding the government's attempts to make it harder to challenge planning permissions, the courts are still prepared to accommodate substantial, and ultimately successful, amendments".

The campaigners filed their first argument just one day before the six-week time limit in section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

They subsequently instructed specialist environmental solicitors Richard Buxton, who argued, in response to an application by the developer for summary judgment, that the decision was vitiated by procedural irregularities.

They claimed that the meetings held by the planning authorities had been called at too short notice for interested parties to make their views and objections known.

The High Court found in their favour in a decision that the secretary of state appealed against.

Taylor Wimpey argued separately that the delay caused by allowing the substitution was contrary to the requirement of speediness in planning law.

Ruling in Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government v Sandra Vicente and Gerald Carden [2013] EWCA Civ 817, Beatson LJ said "a person was entitled to claim the relief available under section 288 as of right, provided the claim is lodged within six weeks of the inspector's decision, and is not under a further obligation to act promptly within that period."

Because the six-week window was quite short, amendments made outside it should be allowed, whether this was as a result of receiving legal advice, as in this case, or because information subsequently came to light that was not originally available.

The judge rejected arguments that the delay would be prejudicial to the developer.

"The judge was correct to compare [Taylor Wimpey's] position with the position had the amended claim been made at the start of the proceedings when, I have stated, it was clear that there would be some delay," he said.

He concluded: "The amendment enabled consideration to be given to the only seriously arguable point in the case, and it was proper, in a case where for the reason given by the deputy judge the additional delay on the material before him was comparatively small, for the substantial issue to be properly settled by the court's adjudication."

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