England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
(MR JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER)

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2 Wednesday, 14th February 2001

Wednesday, 14th February 2001

1. LORD JUSTICE SEDLEY: This is an application for permission to appeal against the refusal of Scott Baker J to allow Mrs Roshdy, the applicant, to apply out of time for judicial review of a planning decision of the Westminister City Council. Mrs Roshdy has written to the court to say that, because of circumstances beyond her control (she does not specify them) she could not be here today. But she had previously (some weeks ago) applied for an adjournment of today's hearing because she said she needed more time to find legal representation. I should place on record that at that point I refused her application because there was, in my view, quite enough time between the application and today's date for her to find a lawyer if she was otherwise able to do so.
2. The amended Form 86A seeks permission to apply for judicial review of Westminister's refusal to withdraw an enforcement notice which was made as long ago as April 1994. The date of the refusal, and hence the matter of complaint, is said in the application to be 8th November 1999. Even if this is the correct date the Form 86A was not lodged until 20th July 2000, the date which it bears in manuscript along with Mrs Roshdy's signature. So on any view, even the most benign, this application is made long out of time, well beyond the three months which are set as the outer limit by the rules for such an application.
3. If, as counsel who appeared for Mrs Roshdy told Scott Baker J, there had been an earlier Form 86A lodged on 21st September 1999 complaining of the decision letter of 5th June 1999, and therefore itself a few days out of time, this cannot help Mrs Roshdy at present. Her application today is related to a different and later decision of the local authority.
4. The issue, as it emerges from the correspondence, has been the propriety of the council having issued an enforcement notice directed (a) to the replacement by Mrs Roshdy of double wooden garage doors and other doors; but also (b) to the use of one of the two garages as living accommodation.
5. Mrs Roshdy had a statutory right of appeal against either or both limbs of this enforcement notice. She exercised that right but without success. Since that time, however, Westminister has accepted that the alteration to the garage doors falls within permission conferred by the General Development Order. Not so, however, the change of use - and this is the subject of the notice of 5th June 1999. However, in its response to the planning inspector some years before on the appeal, the local authority, it appears, had said:

"There is no objection in principle to the use of the whole building as a single residence provided that the garage to the west of the front door is reinstated with traditional doors."

6. It is conceivable that there was a contradiction between these two things, which the council may well have to resolve. But so far as judicial review is concerned absolutely no acceptable reason for the delay (and it is a substantial delay) has been put before either Scott Baker J or this court.
7. Mrs Roshdy has now contended that it was only on 26th July 2000, that is to say a few days after the Form 86A was lodged, that the local authority responded to a letter which she had sent them on 10th November 1999. It followed, she says, that:

"If the Defendant was always to take long time to respond I would always be out of time as applications to move for Judicial Review is limited to three months."

8. This, I have to say, is precisely why the Civil Procedure Rules (like the Rules of the Supreme Court before them) start the three-month clock running from the time when grounds for the claim first arose. That time, in my judgment was, at the latest, November 1999 when the local authority refused to withdraw the enforcement notice, notwithstanding the developments to which I have referred. Arguably it was earlier. No good reason has been shown for enlarging the time that is set by the rules.
9. Like Scott Baker J I would refuse this application.
10. I refuse it on the ground that an appeal against Scott Baker J's decision would have no significant prospect of success.
11. I should make it clear in parting with this case that this is the end of this particular road for Mrs Roshdy. There is no further application which she can properly make in this matter to the court. If there is more to be said, and a contradiction to be resolved, it is with the council and the planning system that this lies.
12. This judgment is to be transcribed at public expense and a copy sent to Mrs Roshdy.
(Application dismissed; no order for costs). (Order does not form part of approved Judgment)