Council defeats legal challenge over grant of planning permission for holiday village in country park

Isle of Anglesey County Council has defeated a challenge brought by a local resident to its decision to allow construction of a leisure village and homes at the Penrhos Estate to proceed.

Resident Hilary Jones had argued that plans by interested party Land and Lakes (Anglesey) relied on an expired permission and the council’s decision was therefore unlawful.

Mr Justice Mould heard in the High Court that the council had in April 2016 granted outline planning permission for a leisure village at Penrhos Coastal Park and a residential development and the change of use of surviving historic estate buildings.

Ms Jones argued that a September 2023 decision by Anglesey to approve certain matters under a section 106 agreement was made on the basis that the planning permission remained capable of implementation. She said that was false because the permission had expired.

The first ground was that the change of use had to commence within five years from the grant of planning consent in 2016 but that did not happen.

Her second ground was that the planning permission as a whole has expired. A third was the Anglesey acted unlawfully in refusing to consider possible enforcement action.

Mould J said on Ground 1 the issue was whether Anglesey erred in law in concluding use of building named the Bailiff's Tower had changed from a cricket clubhouse to a visitor information centre.

For Ms Jones it was submitted Anglesey applied the wrong legal approach to the change in use of the Bailiff's Tower and failed to have regard to material considerations

She argued that Covid-19 restrictions on visitors were not a relevant factor in comparing the use of the Bailiff's Tower before and after April 2021.

Mould J said officers advised that ordinarily the absence of actual use of the premises would raise a doubt as to whether a change of use had occurred.

But the Covid-19 restrictions in place in April 2021 prohibited members of the public from visiting the site.

He said: “In these circumstances, I cannot see any basis in law for excluding the impact of the Covid-19 restrictions on the actual use of the Bailiff's Tower in April 2021 from the committee's consideration of the issue that was before them for determination.

“On the contrary, it seems to me to be obvious that in considering in the round whether the change of use from cricket clubhouse to visitor information centre had taken place, the fact that the visiting public were not at that time permitted by law to enter the newly fitted out information centre was a relevant factor.”

It was further argued for Ms Jones that it was irrational for Anglesey to have concluded that use of the Bailiff's Tower had changed to a visitor information centre in April 2021, in circumstances where members of the public were not able lawfully to visit, and that it failed to have regard to the fact that only a single room on the first floor had been fitted internally for use as a visitor information centre.

Mould J said none of these points were well founded and it had been for the committee to make a reasonable judgment, which it had.

He rejected Ground 2, saying there was “no basis for the argument that the planning permission is incapable of further implementation”.

Anglesey’s refusal to open an enforcement investigation “was a decision that it was reasonably able to make”, the judge said.

Mark Smulian