Implied conditions and the definition of ‘sport’

In recent weeks, my attention has necessarily been focused on final preparation of my new book (The Essential Guide to the Use of Land and Buildings under the Planning Acts) for publication, and I have not had time to blog on various developments in planning law that have occurred recently.

There are a couple of judgments which came too late for the book but, fortunately, both of them only serve to confirm the law as stated in the text (much to my relief!).

The first of these was the judgment of the High Court in Lambeth LBC v SSCLG [2017] EWHC 2412 (Admin), on 3 October. This related to a condition that, it was claimed, should be implied in a planning permission. The case concerned a permission granted under section 73 (which, although it relates to the removal or modification of conditions in a previous planning permission, takes effect as an entirely new planning permission). The previous permission had been restricted by condition to non-food sales, but the conditions in the section 73 permission did not refer to any such restriction. The LPA refused an LDC for unrestricted A1 use, but this decision was overturned on appeal by an inspector, who granted the LDC sought by the developer. It was this appeal decision that the LPA sought to challenge.

The judgment reviewed the previous decisions mentioned below, but the court rejected the LPA’s contention that a condition preventing the sale of food could be implied in this case. To put it as shortly as possible, the decision of the Supreme Court in Trump International Golf Club Scotland Ltd. v Scottish Ministers [2015] UKSC 74 indicates that a term can be implied in a condition that has actually been attached to the permission, so as to give proper effect to the intention of that condition, but this does not over-ride the well-established principle that a condition that is entirely absent from a permission cannot be implied in that permission. Thus in I’m Your Man Limited v SSE 77 P & CR 251, a ‘temporary’ permission (so described in the description of the development authorised by the permission) could not be interpreted so as to imply a condition in that permission that the use should cease at the end of the period mentioned in the description of the development. In the Lambeth case Mrs Justice Lang drew attention to the subsequent approval of that judgment by the Divisional Court in R (Altunkaynak) v Northamptonshire Magistrates Court [2012] EWHC 174 (Admin) and by the Planning Court in Cotswold Grange Country Park LLP v SSCLG [2014] EWHC 1138 (Admin). Both of these cases concerned substantive limitations on the permission granted, not merely temporal ones.

The second recent case was the judgment of the European Court of Justice in English Bridge Union Limited v HMRC (Case C 90/16), which was handed down on 26 October. This finally determined a question that has been the subject of repeated litigation over the past few years, namely whether Bridge can be classified as a ‘sport’ for tax purposes. This judgment confirms that, in order to be a ‘sport’, the activity in question must have some element of physical exertion. I mention this judgment because it is analogous to the question of whether various card and board games can be regarded for planning purposes as coming within Use Class D2(e) (“use ……… for other indoor ……….. sports or recreations”). The decision of the ECJ (contrary to the Opinion of the Advocate-General published in June) is in line with the related English cases - English Bridge Union) v Sport England [2015] EWHC 1347 (Admin) and R (English Bridge Union) v Sport England [2015] EWHC 2875 (Admin).

Whilst the English Bridge Union litigation was concerned with the eligibility of Bridge for grants from Sport England, and its treatment for the purposes of tax and VAT, all these judgments (including now the final judgment of the ECJ) are entirely consistent with the conclusion reached in earlier cases relating to Use Class D2, such as Millington v SSETR (1999) 78 P. & C.R. 373; (1999) J.P.L. 644 (subsequently approved by the Court of Appeal – [2000] J.P.L. 297) and Rugby Football Union v SSETR [2001] EWHC 927 (Admin) (subsequently upheld in the Court of Appeal – [2002] EWCA Civ 1169). A leisure activity will only fall within Use Class D2(e) if it involves some physical effort or exertion. Absent this essential physical element, other ‘recreations’ (even if they are competitive in nature) do not fall within Class D2(e).

© MARTIN H GOODALL