Advertising giant loses High Court battle over refusal of permission for advertising on building near M4

Advertising firm Ocean Outdoor UK has lost a High Court case over whether the London Borough of Hounslow and a planning inspector should have allowed it to display an advertisement on a building.

Timothy Corner KC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge, said in his judgment the claim was for planning statutory review of the inspector's decision to dismiss Ocean Outdoor’s s appeal against Hounslow’s refusal of its application on a building known as the Alfa Laval site.

Ocean Outdoor brought the case on three grounds:

• the inspector, in legal error in breach of the common law duty of fairness, unfairly failed during the appeal to consider providing a prior fair opportunity to verify if active marketing of the site had been or was occurring;
• the inspector, in legal error in breach of the common law Tameside duty during the appeal, failed to acquaint herself with relevant information about the active marketing of the site;
• the inspector failed to consider the objective differences between Policy CC5 of the local plan and national Planning Practice Guidance…and failed to draw a conclusion as between those differences under regulations 3(1) (a) and (b) of the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007.

Mr Corner said the Alfa Laval building is a former office block comprising a tower of about 10 storeys which had stood empty since 1998 and was "subject to ongoing vandalism and is agreed to be an eyesore”. It is next to the elevated section of the M4.

Express consents for advertisements were granted by Hounslow and in July 2007 consent was granted on an appeal under the 1992 Regulations for the display of a ‘package' advertisement on an open mesh weave display shroud before any planning permission had been granted to redevelop the building,

Hiding the building behind an advertising hoarding shroud was an "undoubted improvement", an inspector said at the time.

After various consents were issued for different types of advertisements over a number of years, Hounslow was advised in an officer’s report in August 2023 to refuse consent for a large externally illuminated advertisement to be set within an art deco shroud design on the building’s west elevation for two years.

This was because its position and illumination would harm living conditions in nearby residential properties and so be contrary to t Local Plan Policy CC5 and NPPF Paragraph 136.

Ocean Outdoor appealed against this to the Secretary of State, arguing the building was in a "significant state of disrepair", an "eyesore", and that it simply wished to extend the period during which the advertising shroud could be displayed while a regeneration solution was sought.

Rejecting the first ground, Mr Corner said: “In summary, the procedure followed in this case was entirely fair, and there was no need for the inspector to seek further information from the claimant to bolster its contention that it was actively marketing the site.”

This was linked to the second ground, which was also unsuccessful. Mr Corner explained: “I cannot see that the [inspector] was under any duty to make further inquiries of the claimant.

“Given that the claimant had had ample opportunity to put before the [inspector] any evidence it wished in order to deal with an issue it well knew was in dispute, it cannot be said that no reasonable authority in the position of the [inspector] could have been satisfied that it had sufficient information to determine the appeal.”

He added it followed that the procedure adopted was fair and there was no requirement for the inspector to change the procedure to a hearing.

Mr Corner found “no validity”in the third ground and said: “It is obvious from fairly reading the inspector's decision as a whole, in particular the conclusion at DL14, that she had regard to both the PPG and policy CC5 of the Local Plan.”

He said Ocean Outdoor made an incorrect assumption of a tension or inconsistency between the two policies, “when in reality they co-exist, with one operating at the national and therefore general level, with more specific policy for Hounslow found in the local plan”.

Mark Smulian