Pioneer Aggregates (UK) Ltd v Secretary of State for the Environment and Others [1985] 1 AC 132
The point in plain English: A valid planning permission which is still capable of being carried out is not lost simply because an owner stops the permitted activity or appears to give it up.
What the House of Lords decided
Quarrying had stopped for many years and the former operator had told the planning authority that it was ceasing operations. The site was restored and a later owner wanted to resume mineral working under the old permission.
The House of Lords held that there is no general planning-law doctrine by which a valid planning permission is extinguished merely by an owner’s conduct or commercial decision. Planning permission runs with the land and its duration is governed by the statutory planning code and the terms of the permission itself.
Permission is different from a use
The case draws an important distinction between abandonment of an existing use and supposed abandonment of a planning permission. A lawful use can be abandoned as a matter of fact, but a permission is different.
There is another qualification: where two permissions are physically incompatible, implementing one may make the other incapable of implementation. See Pilkington.
For lawful uses, see Planning Geek’s guide to abandonment of use.
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