An enforcement notice served by the local planning authority was quashed by an inferior court. The authority sought to appeal pursuant to provisions which allowed a right of appeal to ‘any person aggrieved’.
Held: Assuming the words ‘any person’ were capable of including a local planning authority, the authority in question was not a ‘person aggrieved’ as no financial or legal burden had been placed upon it as a result of the decision. If parliament had intended the local planning authority to have a right of appeal, it would have said so clearly and used words which placed the matter beyond all doubt.
Donovan J said: ‘I think it is true that if one came to the expression without reference to judicial decision one would say that the words ‘person aggrieved by a decision’ mean no more than a person who had had the decision given against him; but the courts have decided that the words mean more than that, and have held that the word ‘aggrieved’ is not synonymous in this context with the word ‘dissatisfied’. The word `aggrieved’ connotes some legal grievance, for example, a deprivation of something, an adverse effect on the title to something, and so on.’
Lord Parker CJ said that it is easier to say what will not constitute a person aggrieved than it is to say what ‘person aggrieved’ includes.
Judges:
Donovan J, Lord Parker CJ
Citations:
[1959] 1 QB 384, [1959] 2 WLR 194, [1959] 1 All ER 286
Cited by:
Cited – Walton v The Scottish Ministers SC 17-Oct-2012
The appellant, former chair of a road activist group, challenged certain roads orders saying that the respondent had not carried out the required environmental assessment. His claim was that the road had been adopted without the consultation . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Judicial Review
Updated: 18 May 2022; Ref: scu.470544