The High Court has quashed An Bord Pleanála’s permission for the redevelopment of a petrol station at Tullynagrow, County Monaghan, ruling that the Board relied on a purported 1998 permission that had no legal effect.
Mr Justice William M. McKechnie’s judgment, delivered on 18 May 2010, followed a consolidated hearing of the leave application and, if leave were granted, the substantive judicial review. The applicant, Thomas Mone, challenged the Board’s 26 March 2009 decision granting permission to his uncle, Patrick Mone, for a new forecourt and canopy, shop and associated works. Monaghan County Council was also a notice party.
The dispute centred on a 1998 planning application, reference 98/818, made by Thomas Mone’s father for a petrol station on land owned by Patrick Mone. The father later sought to withdraw it. Although the withdrawal letter was misfiled and the council subsequently issued a purported grant, the Board recorded in November 2000 that the application had been withdrawn. The judgment said section 16 of the Local Government (Planning and Development) Act 1992 barred the council from granting permission on that withdrawn application.
An Bord Pleanála had previously refused several applications concerning the site, treating its use as unauthorised. In March 2009, however, it accepted legal advice and concluded that the 1998 grant was valid and the petrol station use had permission. The Board argued in the judicial review that the old grant could no longer be challenged because statutory time limits had passed. It also disputed whether Thomas Mone had a substantial interest in the case.
The judge found that Mone met the leave threshold: he lived close to the development and operated a competing petrol station. On the substantive issue, the court held that the withdrawn application had ceased to exist and the council’s purported grant was a nullity. The passage of time and the failure to challenge that document could not give it retrospective validity. The statutory time limit restricted challenges to decisions; it did not turn a legal nullity into a valid permission.
The court concluded that the Board’s 2009 decision contained an error of law on its face because it treated the 1998 grant as a valid basis for permission. It granted certiorari and quashed the Board’s decision. The judgment did not itself determine a replacement planning application or grant permission for any development.