Judge gives permission for challenge to dismissal by inspector of appeal over advertising discontinuance notice issued by council

Francis Taylor Building Chambers, whose Gregory Jones KC and Charles Merrett act for claimant City Outdoor Media, said permission was granted on multiple grounds and the case would be the first to consider the interaction between A1P1 rights and discontinuance proceedings.

Its grounds were that the inspector failed to properly assess whether the displays caused substantial injury to amenity, failed to give adequate reasons, and / or was irrational, and that the inspector erred in his approach to heritage impact by failing to have regard to expert evidence and misconstrued the approach to heritage harm, while again not giving adequate reasons.

City Outdoor Media also claimed unlawful violation of its A1P1 rights, which concern the protection of property under the European Convention on Human Rights.

A fourth ground is that the inspector’s amendments were irrational, ineffective and rendered the notice void for uncertainty.

FTB said the first three grounds each raised “important points of practice that will be of interest to all those practicing in the advertising industry given the prevalence of multiple displays on single sites and the frequent interaction between heritage assets and advertisement displays”.

Mark Smulian