The house owners disputed whether at the time they had carried out certain works, the house had been a listed building, saying it had been ommitted from the official list. The respondent said that it had appeared but admitted that the designation was incomplete. The owners said it was incorrect in almost every detail.
Held: The appeal failed. The Act did not set down the precise form of the list or the details to be included, however ‘In general, the list should contain as much reliable relevant detail as is reasonably available when compiling the list, even though not specifically required by the 1990 Act. In general, the correct name and address of the building should be ascertained and put in the list. Additional detail advances the purposes of the legislation by enhancing the clarity and precision of the list and by reducing the risk of costly disputes ending up in the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court. In some cases, depending on the particular circumstances, additional details may identify, for the purposes of the Act, a building that has not been clearly and precisely identified by its correct name and address.’
Sensible allowances should be made, allowing that a building might be identified in more than one way. The issue was as to identification not description. The list is a list of buildings, not a list of names, and ‘The entry must be read and interpreted by reference to all of its interconnected parts. Exclusive reliance on a correct name or address for a building would demand a degree of clarity and precision that does not reflect real life. ‘
Judges:
Mummery, Richards, Aikens LLJ
Citations:
[2011] EWCA Civ 27
Links:
Statutes:
Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation) Act 1990
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – City of Edinburgh Council v Secretary of State for Scotland and Another; Same v Same (Conjoined Appeals) HL 31-Oct-1997
The Listed buildings registers are to be read consistently; the trading level is a material consideration in listed buildings consent applications. The weight to be given to a material consideration once identified was a matter of judgment for the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Planning
Updated: 01 September 2022; Ref: scu.428245