My Authority recently granted consent to remove a condition which restricted the use of a cattery to five year periods. The cattery was originally approved in 1995 and has always been controlled using these temporary 5 year conditions only. The recent approval removed the temporary use condition, as requested by the applicants, and a permanent use was established. However the Council then imposed a condition that the permanent use of the cattery be restricted to the current owners, making it a personal consent. The agents have written a letter of complaint on the grounds that the permission was to remove the time limit condition and should have been judged on its individual merits, either approval with the removal of the condition, or refused so that they could appeal the decision. It is the agent’s view that by adding a new more restrictive condition, we have acted Ultra Vires. I appreciate the Planning Act gives us consent to add conditions to control development “as we see fit” and subject to the test in circ 11/95, but its my view that this personal consent should have been conditioned on the first consent if it was an issue? Any views/case law would be appreciated
