Pyx Granite Co Ltd v Ministry of Housing and Local Government [1958] 1 QB 554 (CA)
Pyx Granite in the Court of Appeal is one of the foundations of modern planning-condition law.
Lord Denning MR stated the enduring principle that although planning authorities have wide powers to impose conditions, a condition must fairly and reasonably relate to the permitted development and must not use the planning power for an ulterior object.
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- Neutral citation
- [1958] 1 QB 554; [1958] 2 WLR 371; [1958] 1 All ER 625
- Court
- Court of Appeal
- Judgment date
- 7th February 1958
- Judge
- Lord Denning MR, Hodson LJ and Morris LJ
The condition must relate to the development permitted
The case concerned quarrying in the Malvern Hills. Conditions dealt with the use of crushing and screening machinery, dust, hours of operation and the removal of plant when quarrying ceased.
The Court held that a planning authority cannot use a condition simply because it regards the result as desirable in the public interest. The condition must be connected sufficiently closely to the development for which permission is being granted.
No ulterior purpose
A planning power cannot lawfully be used as a back-door means of suppressing an existing lawful use or achieving an objective outside the statutory planning power. If a different statutory procedure is required to achieve that result, the authority cannot evade it by attaching a condition to a new permission.
The conditions in Pyx were upheld
On the facts, the machinery was closely associated with the quarrying operation. The Court therefore regarded the controls on hours, dust and removal of plant as sufficiently connected with the permitted development.
The House of Lords later reversed the Court of Appeal on another issue
The Court of Appeal’s decision was reversed by the House of Lords in Pyx Granite [1960] AC 260, but not on this planning-condition principle. The condition reasoning survived and was subsequently approved in later House of Lords and Supreme Court authority, including the modern line of cases culminating in DB Symmetry.
Why Pyx Granite matters
The case is part of the ancestry of the modern tests for planning conditions. When asking whether a condition is lawful, the starting questions remain whether it relates to the development and whether the planning power is being used for a proper planning purpose.
Read the Court of Appeal judgment
Planning Geek holds the Court of Appeal transcript in the protected case law library. Gold Members can open the PDF below.
Pyx Granite Court of Appeal Case Law Page Updated: 11th September 2026