Amin Dharmeshkumar v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government & Anor [2025] EWHC 25123 (Admin)

Dharmeshkumar is a Planning Court judgment on a former office building in Wembley which had prior approval to change to twelve flats under the historic Class O permitted development right.

The High Court dismissed the owner’s section 289 appeal. The case is useful on three connected points: what counts as development under section 55, how unauthorised building works interact with a permitted change of use, and how ambiguities in a prior approval decision can be resolved.

Neutral citation

[2025] EWHC 25123 (Admin)

Court

High Court of Justice, King's Bench Division, Planning Court

Judgment date

3rd October 2025

Judge

Tim Smith, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge

Case number

AC-2024-LON-003541

The building had both an express permission and Class O prior approval

Brent granted two decisions in December 2017. One planning permission authorised external works including replacement fenestration and a cycle store. A separate prior approval authorised the change from offices to twelve flats under the then Class O office-to-residential permitted development right.

The owner later carried out substantial works to the building. Some were covered by the express permission, while other external changes, particularly to the fenestration, departed from it.

Section 55(2) can exclude substantial alterations from development

The court explained the correct sequence under section 55 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

Rebuilding and structural alterations may initially fall within building operations under section 55(1A). But section 55(2) can still exclude works carried out for maintenance, improvement or alteration where they affect only the interior or do not materially affect the external appearance.

Those provisions have to be read together. Section 55(2) is not bypassed merely because works can also be described as structural alterations or rebuilding.

The Inspector had nevertheless applied the right test

Reading the decision letter as a whole, the High Court held that the Inspector had understood the section 55 test.

The lift-shaft overrun was difficult to see externally and could not rationally be treated as materially affecting appearance. The fenestration changes were different. The Inspector was entitled, as a matter of planning judgment, to find that the change to that part of the building materially affected its external appearance.

The court also rejected an argument based simply on the small percentage of the whole building affected. Planning legislation defines a building as including part of a building, so materiality can be assessed by reference to the affected part.

A departure from one permission does not make every other work unlawful

The judgment applies the Supreme Court’s clarification in Hillside. Where works partly comply with a planning permission and partly depart from it, the departure does not automatically render every compliant operation unlawful.

That meant the works already authorised by the 2017 express permission remained capable of relying on it. The problem was the additional works which were not authorised and which themselves required planning permission.

Unlawful building works affected reliance on Class O

Article 3(5) of the GPDO prevented reliance on permitted development rights connected with an existing building where the relevant building operations were unlawful.

Because the Inspector had lawfully found material unauthorised external works, the owner could not rely on the Class O deemed permission to regularise the completed twelve-flat use.

Two approved plan references did not exist

The prior approval decision itself contained a striking clerical problem: two of the four plan references listed on it did not exist.

The owner argued that the plans were therefore irrelevant and that the only thing approved was a change to twelve flats in general terms.

The court rejected that approach. This was a prior approval, not an ordinary express planning permission. Paragraph W(12)(a) of the GPDO required development to be carried out in accordance with the details approved by the local planning authority.

Because the decision contained genuinely unintelligible plan references, the Inspector was entitled to look at the application material to resolve the ambiguity and identify the details which had actually been approved.

The owner’s earlier attempts to vary the plans did not alter the legal test

Brent had acted unreasonably in failing to engage properly with attempts to agree amendments, and the Inspector awarded part of the owner’s appeal costs for that conduct.

But the council’s poor administration did not mean the altered development automatically complied with the original prior approval. The High Court left the partial costs award intact while dismissing the substantive appeal.

Class O is historic

The permitted development right considered here was the former Class O office-to-residential route. It is not the current route for this type of development.

For current proposals see our Class MA guide, and always check the current GPDO conditions and prior-approval requirements rather than applying the old Class O wording.

A later Court of Appeal judgment did not decide these planning merits

Mr Dharmeshkumar later sought permission to appeal. In Dharmeshkumar v SSHCLG [2026] EWCA Civ 247 the Court of Appeal determined a preliminary procedural question about the test for permission to appeal under section 289.

That 2026 judgment did not determine whether the High Court’s conclusions above were right or wrong on their planning-law merits.

Read the full High Court judgment

The approved Planning Court judgment is held in the Planning Geek case law library. Gold Members can open the protected PDF below.

Dharmeshkumar Case Law Page Updated: 9th September 2026