The Supreme Court has allowed an appeal by the operators of Tipperary Raceway against an injunction restricting the motor racing circuit, and remitted the case to the High Court to decide what permanent restrictions should apply. In the meantime, the raceway was restrained from drifting until the High Court considers the matter.
The dispute arose from a complaint by Robert and Deirdre Lanigan and Benghazi Limited, trading as Tullamaine Castle Stud, that increased activity at the nearby circuit had affected their stud business through noise. The High Court had found in their favour on both planning and private nuisance grounds and granted an injunction that significantly restricted the circuit’s operation.
In a judgment delivered on 27 July 2016, Mr Justice Clarke said the Supreme Court could accept the trial judge’s factual findings. The appeal focused on legal issues and the scope of the injunction.
The court found that the 1981 planning permission did not contain a specific condition limiting the scale or timing of the circuit’s operation. The application documents could still help establish the broad level of use contemplated when permission was granted. The court agreed that later use had become a highly material intensification and, without planning permission, an unauthorised development.
However, the Planning and Development Act 2000 limitation period applied to unauthorised development. The High Court had not assessed how much of the intensification occurred before that period began and how much occurred afterwards. The Supreme Court said it could not determine the enforceable level of post-limitation use without trial findings precise enough to make that assessment.
The Supreme Court also upheld the finding of nuisance, but said the High Court had not separately considered what restrictions were just and reasonable to address it. Instead, the injunction was largely based on the 1981 planning application and permission. The court held that the injunction could not be sustained on either the planning or nuisance grounds, while concluding that some injunction was justified under both.
The matter was sent back to the High Court to determine the appropriate permanent order. Pending that decision, the Supreme Court imposed an interim restraint on drifting, an activity the evidence described as particularly noisy and which had grown substantially in recent years. The court said this temporary measure must not influence the High Court’s eventual decision; the High Court may permit drifting or impose other restrictions after considering the case fully.