Council fails to get development plan document challenge from parish struck out

A local authority has failed in a bid to have a legal challenge brought by a parish council – seeking to quash a development plan document containing the Core Strategy adopted for the area by the city council – struck out for being out of time.

The case of Nottingham City Council v Calverton Parish Council [2015] EWHC 503 (Admin) raised one short but important point of statutory construction, Mr Justice Lewis said.

This concerned the operation of s. 113(4) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, under which an application to quash a development plan document must be made no later than the end of the period of six weeks starting with the relevant date.

The relevant date in this case was the adoption of the document plan document on 8 September 2014.

The court office was closed on Sunday, 19 October 2014 – the day the six-week period ended – and an application could not be made on that day. The parish council made its application to quash the next day (Monday, 20 October 2014).

Dismissing Nottingham’s application to strike out the claim, Mr Justice Lewis concluded: “On a proper interpretation of section 113(4) of the 2004 Act, Parliament intended the six week time limit to expire on the next working day, that is on Monday, 20 October 2014. As the claim was issued on that day, the claim against the city council, seeking an order to quash the development plan document, was brought within the time prescribed by section 113(4) of the 2004.”