Coventry and others v Lawrence and another

This appeal raises a number of points in connection with the law of private nuisance, a common law tort. While the law also recognises public nuisance, a common law offence, this appeal is only concerned with private nuisance, so all references hereafter to nuisance are to private nuisance. It should also be mentioned at the outset that the type of nuisance alleged in this case is nuisance in the sense of personal discomfort, in particular nuisance by noise, as opposed to actual injury to the claimant’s property (such as discharge of noxious material or removal of support).

As Lord Goff of Chieveley explained in Hunter v Canary Wharf Ltd [1997] AC 655, 688, “[t]he term ‘nuisance’ is properly applied only to such actionable user of land as interferes with the enjoyment by the plaintiff of rights in land”, quoting from Newark, The Boundaries of Nuisance (1949) 65 LQR 480. See also per Lord Hoffmann at pp 705-707, where he explained that this principle may serve to limit the extent to which a nuisance claim could be based on activities which offended the senses of occupiers of property as opposed to physically detrimental to the property.

A nuisance can be defined, albeit in general terms, as an action (or sometimes a failure to act) on the part of a defendant, which is not otherwise authorised, and which causes an interference with the claimant’s reasonable enjoyment of his land, or to use a slightly different formulation, which unduly interferes with the claimant’s enjoyment of his land. As Lord Wright said in Sedleigh-Denfield v O'Callaghan[1940] AC 880, 903, “a useful test is perhaps what is reasonable according to the ordinary usages of mankind living in society, or more correctly in a particular society”.

In Sturges v Bridgman (1879) 11 Ch D 852, 865, Thesiger LJ, giving the judgment of the Court of Appeal, famously observed that whether something is a nuisance “is a question to be determined, not merely by an abstract consideration of the thing itself, but in reference to its circumstances”, and “what would be a nuisance in Belgrave Square would not necessarily be so in Bermondsey”. Accordingly, whether a particular activity causes a nuisance often depends on an assessment of the locality in which the activity concerned is carried out.

As Lord Goff said in Cambridge Water Company v Eastern Counties Leather plc [1994] 2 AC 264, 299,liability for nuisance is “kept under control by the principle of reasonable user – the principle of give and take as between neighbouring occupiers of land, under which ‘... those acts necessary for the common and ordinary use and occupation of land and houses may be done, if conveniently done, without subjecting those who do them to an action’: see Bamford vTurnley (1862) 3 B & S 62, 83, per Bramwell B”. I agree with Lord Carnwath in para 179 below that reasonableness in this context is to be assessed objectively.

The issues raised on this appeal are as follows:

The extent, if any, to which it is open to a defendant to contend that he has established a prescriptive right to commit what would otherwise be a nuisance by means of noise;

The extent, if any, to which a defendant to a nuisance claim can rely on the fact that the claimant “came to the nuisance”;

The extent, if any, to which it is open to a defendant to a nuisance claim to invoke the actual use of his premises, complained of by the claimant, when assessing the character of the locality;

The extent, if any, to which the grant of planning permission for a particular use can affect the question of whether that use is a nuisance or any other use in the locality can be taken into account when considering the character of the locality;

The approach to be adopted by a court when deciding whether to grant an injunction to restrain a nuisance being committed, or whether to award damages instead, and the relevance of planning permission to that issue.

In February 1975, planning permission was granted to Terence Waters for the construction of a stadium (“the Stadium”) some three miles west of Mildenhall Suffolk, on agricultural land which he owned. The planning permission permitted the Stadium to be used for “speedway racing and associated facilities” for a period of ten years. Speedway racing involves racing speedway motorcycles over several laps of a circuit.

The Stadium was constructed during the ensuing year, and thereafter it was used for the permitted purpose by a company called Fen Tigers Ltd, Terence Waters’ licensee or lessee of the Stadium. The planning permission was renewed on a permanent basis in 1985, although it was made personal to Mr Waters. Stock car and banger racing started at the Stadium in 1984. Such uses were not permitted under the planning permission, but after ten years of such use, it was contended that they had become immune from planning control enforcement, pursuant to section 191 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, as substituted by section 10(1) of the Planning and Compensation Act 1991, and Mr Waters applied for a Certificate of Lawfulness of Existing Use or Development (a “CLEUD”), pursuant to section 191 in early 1995. In July 1997, a CLEUD was issued by the planning authority confirming that, for a period of ten years, there had been 20 stock car and banger racing events (at specified hours of the day) at the Stadium each year, so that such a use had become lawful in planning terms. In addition, greyhound racing has been going on at the Stadium since 1992.

To the rear of the stadium is a motocross track (“the Track”), an undulating track on which this particular type of motorbike racing and practice takes place. The Track was constructed and used pursuant to a personal planning permission for motocross events, which was granted in May 1992 for a year, and renewed from time to time thereafter, always subject to conditions which sought to control the frequency of events, and the amount of sound which was emitted during such events. Eventually, in 2002, a permanent personal planning permission was granted for this use, subject to similar conditions, including one which limited the use of the Track to a limited number of days within prescribed hours, and another which imposed a maximum noise level of LAeq 85 dB over any hour at the boundary of the Track.

In August 2005, the Stadium was acquired from Mr Waters by his son, James Walters, and he leased it a month later to Carl Harris, who entered into an arrangement whereby the business at the Stadium was operated by David Coventry. David Coventry and his brother later took on the lease and then acquired the Stadium in April 2008. They have owned and operated it since then. Fen Tigers Ltd itself continued to promote speedway racing at the Stadium until it went into liquidation in July 2010. Terence Waters is also one of the three joint owners of the Track, and, in September 2003, he and his co-owners granted a lease of the track for ten years to Moto-Land UK Ltd (“M-LUK”), who since then have operated the activities on the Track.

The trial judge, His Honour Judge Richard Seymour QC (sitting as a Deputy Judge of the High Court), found that, between 1975 and 2009, the Stadium had been used for speedway racing between 16 and 35 times per year, save that for six years (1990, 1991, 1993 1994, 1997 and 2000) it was not used at all for speedway. As for stock car racing, the judge found that it had occurred at the Stadium between 16 and 27 times a year between 1985 and 2009, save that there was no stock car racing in 1991 or 1992. The judge also found that the Track had been “used for motocross to the full extent permitted” by the relevant planning permission (para 76). As he also mentioned, in 1995, this activity had resulted in the service of noise abatement notices, under section 80 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, which were then the subject of inconclusive proceedings.

Across open fields, about 560 metres from the Stadium and about 860 metres from the Track, is a bungalow called “Fenland”, which was built in the 1950s. It stands in about 0.35 hectares of garden, and is otherwise surrounded by agricultural land. The nearest residential property to Fenland appears to be about half a mile away, and the small village of West Row is about 1.5 miles to the south-east of Fenland (and about one mile to the south east of the Stadium).

In January 2006, Katherine Lawrence and Raymond Shields (“the appellants”) purchased and moved into Fenland; their vendors were a Mr and Mrs Relton, who had owned and lived in Fenland since 1984. By April 2006, the appellants had become concerned about the noise coming from the motocross events on the Track. They complained about this to the local council in and after April 2006, and they also wrote to Mr Coventry and M-LUK, and to Terence and James Waters, threatening proceedings. The complaints to the council eventually resulted in the service of further noise abatement notices, required the carrying out of works to mitigate the noise emanation (“the attenuation works”). These notices were served during December 2007 on Mr Coventry, his brother, M-LUK and Fen Tigers Ltd, and stated that the activities at the Stadium and on the Track each constituted a statutory nuisance. The attenuation works were carried out, albeit later than they should have been, by January 2009.

Meanwhile, the appellants had also been pursuing their contention that both the Stadium and the Track were being used in such a way as to constitute a nuisance. As discussions did not produce what they considered to be an acceptable outcome, the appellants issued proceedings against Mr Coventry, M-LUK and Terence and James Waters (“the respondents”) in the High Court for an injunction to restrain the nuisance in early 2008. In those proceedings, the appellants contended that the activities at the Stadium and on the Track constituted a nuisance individually, or in the alternative cumulatively. They maintained this contention following the completion of the attenuation works. The respondents filed a joint Defence in December 2009 denying nuisance.

In April 2010, Fenland suffered a serious fire, which caused extensive damage and rendered it uninhabitable. Since then, no-one has lived there, as it has yet to be rebuilt. Meanwhile, the proceedings came on before Judge Seymour on 26 January, and he heard them over 11 days.

The judge gave his decision on 4 March 2011, and his judgment runs to 325 paragraphs and over 110 pages - [2011] EWHC 360 (QB) (reported in part [2011] 4 All ER 1314). It is unnecessary to attempt to explain it in any detail for the purposes of this appeal. There are some parts which are difficult to follow, and there are one or two findings which he should have made, but did not make (in particular whether the appellants knew of the planning permissions when they purchased Fenland).

Particularly where there has been a relatively long and expensive hearing, it is important that the judge (i) clearly identifies for his own benefit as well as that of the parties, all the issues of fact and expert opinion that are in issue, and (ii) resolves in clear terms all such issues which are relevant on his view of the law, and, at least often, those issues which would be relevant if his view of the law turns out to be wrong. Otherwise, there is a real risk of a complete or partial rehearing being ordered, which would be very unfair on the parties, and would bring the administration of law into disrepute.

Reverting to Judge Seymour’s judgment, he began by summarising the relatively uncontroversial history, and then turned to the “nature of the locality”. He described the immediate locality which was generally rural, but included some houses and a small village, West End, and also a US Air Force base at RAF Mildenhall, which, at its nearest point, is about a mile to the east of the Stadium, the Track and Fenland, and is also about a mile to the north of West Row. The judge described the terms of the various planning permissions, and then turned to the question whether the planning permissions for the uses of the Stadium and the Track should have any bearing on the issue of whether those uses constituted a nuisance. He concluded in para 66 that they should not, because of the personal nature of the permissions, and the fact that they limited the permitted uses to a maximum number of days a year and to specified hours of the day.

Judge Seymour next discussed the extent to which the Stadium and the Track had been used over the years. He then set out (at paras 96-206) the oral and documentary evidence which he had read and heard in relation to the level of noise emanating from the Stadium and the Track. This evidence consisted of (i) letters, mostly of support, sent to the planning authorities in connection with the applications for, and renewals of, the planning permissions for the use of the Stadium and the Track for the activities described above, (ii) the advices given in connection with those applications and permissions by planning officers to planning committees, (iii) the planning permissions themselves, (iv) letters sent to the local authority between 1992 and 2010, complaining of the noise, (v) records kept, and letters sent, by the local Environmental Health Officers, (vi) the oral evidence of the appellants, four other residents in the locality on behalf of the appellants, and Mrs Relton and at least five other residents for the respondents, (vii) one expert acoustic witness for each side, (viii) reports on noise levels from various public bodies including the World Health Organisation, the Department of the Environment, the National Physical Laboratory, and the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research.

When considering the expert evidence, the judge (at para 158) raised the question “whether it was appropriate, in assessing whether the noise generated by the activities [of the defendant] was capable of causing a … nuisance, to take into account as one of the noise characteristics of the locality the noise generated by those very activities”. As Jackson LJ said in the Court of Appeal [2012] 1 WLR 2127, para 72, the judge does not appear to have answered that question expressly, but he appears to have held that the answer was no.

The judge said that, when the Stadium was being used for speedway, stock car, and banger racing from 1984, and also when the Track was being used for motocross from 1992, the noise was “sometimes … sufficiently intrusive to generate complaints, and sometimes not”. Accordingly, he concluded that “it was possible so to organise activities at the Stadium or at the Track as not to produce intrusive noise affecting those residing nearby” - para 95.

The judge also concluded at para 207 that “the operation of activities at the Stadium both before and after the [attenuation] works constituted a nuisance, by reason of the noise generated, to [the appellants]”, and he immediately went on to make the same finding about “the activities at the Track”.

The judge then considered and rejected the respondents’ contention that they had acquired a right to create what would otherwise have been a nuisance by noise, as a result of the use of the Stadium for speedway, stock car, and banger racing for more than 20 years. First, he held that no such right could be acquired as a matter of law; secondly, he held that, even if that was wrong, the interruption in use, especially in respect of stock car and banger racing in 1991 and 1992, would have been fatal to a prescriptive claim.

Finally, having concluded that the appellants had established a claim in nuisance, the judge turned to the question of remedies. He stated at paras 243-245 that he was minded to grant an injunction to restrain the respondents from carrying on activities at the Stadium or at the Track which emitted more than a specified level of noise, which he had in mind to fix at specific levels which he identified. He explained at para 243 that he had arrived at those levels by reference to the quantum of noise emitted from various motor racing circuits across the United Kingdom, a topic on which he had heard evidence from one of the expert witnesses, and also stated that there should be a lower level of noise permitted during the evening and at night. He recorded at para 244 that the respondents did not challenge the notion that he should grant an injunction if he concluded that their activities had caused “continuing nuisance”. At para 245, he provisionally indicated the decibel limits he had in mind, and added that, as Fenland was unoccupied, it may be appropriate to suspend any injunction. The judge then dealt with damages for past nuisance.

After he had handed down his judgment, a further hearing took place before the judge, pursuant to which he made an order which was a little more generous to the respondents than he had provisionally suggested, in that the injunction he granted permitted them to emit somewhat higher noise levels on up to 12 weekends each year. He gave the respondents time to reorganise their affairs by providing that the injunction would only take effect on 1 January 2012, or (if later) when Fenland was ready for residential occupation (which has not yet happened). The terms of the order also gave either party permission to apply to vary the terms of the injunction, but not earlier than 1 October 2011.

The respondents appealed against the decision. The Court of Appeal reversed Judge Seymour’s decision, holding that the appellants had failed to establish that the respondents’ activities at the stadium and the Track constituted a nuisance: [2012] 1 WLR 2127. Jackson LJ, who gave the main judgment, with which Mummery and Lewison LJJ agreed, held that the judge had gone wrong in holding that the actual use of the Stadium and the Track over a number of years, with planning permission, or a CLEUD, could not be taken into account when the assessing the character of the locality for the purpose of determining whether an activity is a nuisance – paras 74 and 76. In those circumstances, it was unnecessary for the Court of Appeal to consider any other issue, although Lewison LJ expressed a provisional view that, contrary to the judge’s conclusion, it is possible to obtain by prescription a right to commit what would otherwise be a nuisance: paras 88-91.

The appellants now appeal to the Supreme Court. As indicated at the start of this judgment, the appeal raises a number of points relating to the law of nuisance, and it is convenient to consider them in principle before applying them to the facts and arguments in this appeal.

There is no doubt that a defendant can have a right to carry on an activity which would otherwise be a nuisance. For instance, in common law, a claimant may have bindingly agreed to the activity being carried on and to the consequent nuisance, or a claimant may somehow be estopped from objecting to the activity on the ground that it constitutes a nuisance; and, under a statute, certain activities in certain circumstances may be accorded immunity from a claim in nuisance – see eg section 76 of the Civil Aviation Act 1982 and section 158 of the Planning Act 2008.

It is well established that an easement (that is, a right in favour of the so-called “dominant” land over the so-called “servient” land, such as a right of way, a right to light, a right of support, or a right of drainage) can be acquired by prescription as well as by express grant. Prescription is a form of deemed grant and arises as a result of long use.

Prescription was initially introduced and developed by the judges. It has been complicated by the facts that (i) as originally developed, it was subject to some rather technical, and impractical, rules (and in particular a requirement of at least an inference of enjoyment since 1189), (ii) the courts have developed another prescriptive principle, that of lost modern grant (which is not subject to so much technicality), (iii) it has been the subject of a large number of judicial decisions, many of which are hard to understand or reconcile, (iv) Parliament enacted the ill-drafted Prescription Act in 1832 (2 & 3 Will 4, c 71), so that (v) there are now two types of common law prescription, together with statutory prescription.

The essential feature of prescription for present purposes is that, in order to establish a right by prescription, a person must show at least 20 years uninterrupted enjoyment as of right, that is nec vi, nec clam, nec precario (“not by force, nor stealth, nor with the licence of the owner”), as Lord Walker put it in R (Lewis) v Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council[2010] 2 AC 70, para 20), of that which he now claims to be entitled to enjoy by right.

An issue in the present appeal is whether the right to commit a nuisance by noise can be acquired by prescription. For this purpose, I do not think that it strictly matters whether the right to make a noise which would otherwise be a nuisance can be an easement or not. As Lord Sumner said in Pwllbach Colliery Co Ltd v Woodman [1915] AC 634, 649, a right in favour of a property owner over neighbouring land (in that case, to spread coal dust emanating from the property owner’s landover adjoining land) may be too indeterminate to be an easement, but it can still be the subject of a perfectly valid grant. Accordingly, it seems to me that there is no inherent reason why a right to spread coal dust, or to make a noise which would otherwise be a nuisance, should not be established by prescription.

Having said that, I am of the view that the right to carry on an activity which results in noise, or the right to emit a noise, which would otherwise cause an actionable nuisance, is capable of being an easement. The fact that the noise from an activity may be heard in a large number of different properties can fairly be said to render it an unusual easement, but, as Mr McCracken QC for the respondents said, whether or not there is an easement is to be decided between the owner of the property from which the noise emanates and each neighbouring property-owner. Equally, as Lewison LJ said at [2012] 1 WLR 2127, para 88, the fact that a right is only exercisable at specified times does not prevent it from being an easement. As he also pointed out at para 89, one can characterise a right to emit noise in relatively conventional terms in the context of easements, namely as “the right to transmit sound waves over” the servient land. Lord Parker of Waddington clearly assumed that the right to emit noise could be an easement in Pwllbach [1915] AC 634, 646, referring to Lyttleton Times Co Ltd v Warners Ltd [1907] AC 476. Furthermore, where there is an express grant, it should normally be reasonably easy to identify the level of permitted noise, the periods when it may be emitted, and the activities which may produce the noise.

Subject to questions of notice and registration, the benefit and burden of an easement run with the land, and, therefore, if a right to emit noise which would otherwise be a nuisance is an easement, it would bind successors of the grantor, whereas it is a little hard to see how that would be so if the right were not an easement. Given the property-based nature of nuisance, and given the undesirable practical consequences if the benefit and burden of the right to emit a noise would not run with the relevant land, it appears to me that both principle and policy favour the conclusion that that a right to create what would otherwise be a nuisance by noise to land can be an easement.

Greater difficulties arise when one comes to consider whether, and if so how, a right to commit a nuisance has been obtained by prescription. It has been suggested that is not possible to obtain by prescription a right to commit what would otherwise be a nuisance by noise, vibration, smoke or smell – see the discussion in Clerk and Lindsell on Torts 20^th ed (2010), para 20-85.

As that discussion suggests, there appear to be three possible problems with the notion that such a right could be obtained by prescription. The first is that the 20 years can only run when the noise amounts to a nuisance. As Thesiger LJ giving the judgment of the Court of Appeal, agreeing with Sir George Jessel MR, put it in Sturges at 11 Ch D 852, 863-864, “[c]onsent or acquiescence of the owner of the servient tenement lies at the root of prescription, and … an enjoyment which a man cannot prevent raises no presumption of consent or acquiescence.” So, during such time as the noise is at such a level that it does not amount to a nuisance, time will not run: while it is not a nuisance there can be no question of the claimant being able to stop it. Secondly, there could obviously be difficulties in identifying the extent of the easement obtained by prescription: even if the level of noise can be shown to have amounted to a nuisance for more than 20 years, it will often have varied in intensity and frequency (in the sense of both timing and pitch). Thirdly, there could also be a connected problem of deciding how much, if any, more noise could be emitted pursuant to the acquired right than had been emitted during the 20 years.

In my view, these problems should not stand in the way of a continuing nuisance by noise being able to give rise to a prescriptive right to transmit sound waves over servient land. The first two problems are, at least largely, practical in nature, and could often present the owner of the alleged dominant land with difficulties in making out his case, but that is not a good reason for holding that he should not be entitled to do so on appropriate facts. Further, the extent of the two problems is mitigated by the fact that, to justify a prescriptive right, the 20 years use does not have to be continuous: see Carr v Foster (1842) 3 QB 581, 586-588, per Lord Denman CJ, and Patteson and Williams JJ. It is worth noting that Patteson J was prepared to accept that an interruption of even seven years might not destroy the claim to have acquired a right by prescription over 20 years.

As for the third problem, it is not dissimilar from the question of the extent of some other easements obtained by prescription, such as a right of way or a right to discharge polluted water. The precise extent of a right to transmit sound waves obtained by prescription must be highly fact-sensitive, and may often depend not only on the amount and frequency of the noise emitted, but also on other factors including the character of the neighbourhood and the give and take referred to by Lord Goff in Cambridge Water [1994] 2 AC 294, 299.

Given the potential effect on the enjoyment of the servient land of an increase in the level or frequency of noise, it seems to me that the dominant owner cannot, or at least could only very rarely, be accorded the degree of latitude available to someone with a right of way or a right of drainage obtained by prescription, as discussed in McAdams Homes Ltd v Robinson [2004] 3 EGLR 93, paras 24-47 and 79-84. The position is closer to a case where a right to pollute the servient owner’s watercourse is obtained by prescription. Thus, in Baxendale v McMurray(1867) 2 Ch App 790, 795, Lord Cairns LJ indicated that, albeit in a case where a change of materials had been involved in the business of the dominant owner, the servient owner had cause for complaint if he could show “a greater amount of pollution and injury arising from the use of this new material” in order to establish a breach of his rights.

So far as previous cases on noise and the like are concerned, as Lewison LJ said below at para 91, Tindal CJ clearly assumed that a right to emit “noxious vapours and smells” could be acquired by prescription in Bliss v Hall (1838) 4 Bing NC 183, 186, and in Sturges v Bridgman 11 Ch D 852, 863-865, it was also clearly assumed by the Court of Appeal that a right to emit noise and vibration which would otherwise be a nuisance can be acquired by prescription. So, too, in Crump v Lambert (1867) LR 3 Eq 409, 413, Lord Romilly MR said that “the right of … sending smoke or noise” over a neighbour’s land could be obtained if the neighbour “has not resisted for a period of 20 years”. Finally in this connection, I note that in another well known nuisance case, St Helen’s Smelting Co v Tipping (1865) 11 HLCas 642, 652, Lord Westbury LC referred to “cases where any prescriptive right has been acquired by a lengthened user of the place”.

In these circumstances, I conclude that, in the light of the relevant principles, practical considerations and judicial dicta, it is possible to obtain by prescription a right to commit what would otherwise be a nuisance by noise, or, to put it another way, to transmit sound waves over neighbouring land.

Before leaving this topic, I should mention that, in the Court of Appeal, Lewison LJ at para 91 raised the possibility that all that the owner of the dominant land needed to establish in order to show a prescriptive right was that the sound waves (at a certain volume) have been passing over the servient land for a period of over 20 years irrespective of whether they constituted a nuisance during any part of that period. So far as practicalities are concerned, this approach would have the advantage of avoiding the first of the three problems identified in para 36 above, but the other two problems would remain.

However, this approach was not adopted by the respondents on this appeal, and I am inclined to think that they were right. The approach was considered and rejected both by Sir George Jessel and the Court of Appeal in Sturges11 Ch D 852, as explained in para 36 above, on the ground that time does not run for the purposes of prescription unless the activities of the owner (or occupier) of the putative dominant land can be objected to by the owner of the putative servient land. The notion that an easement can only be acquired by prescription if the activity concerned is carried on “as of right” for 20 years, ie nec vi, nec clam, nec precario,would seem to carry with it the assumption that it would not assist the putative dominant owner if the activity was carried on “of right” for 20 years, as no question of force, stealth or permission could apply.

Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe’s observations in R (Lewis) v Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council (No 2)[2010] 2 AC 70, para 30 give some support for this view. He approved as a “general proposition” that if a right is to be obtained by prescription, the persons claiming that right “must by their conduct bring home to the landowner that a right is being asserted against him, so that the landowner has to choose between warning the trespassers off, or eventually finding that they have established the asserted right against him.”

It is true that this would not apply to a right to receive light, but the right to light is an “anomalous” easement, as Lord Hoffmann pointed out in Hunter [1997] AC 655, 709. In a passage which supports the view expressed in the preceding two paragraphs, he said that “[i]n the normal case of prescription, the dominant owner will have been doing something for the period of prescription (such as using a footpath) which the servient owner could have stopped. But one cannot stop a neighbour from erecting a building with windows.”

In any event, the right to emit noise (or smoke or smells) over neighbouring land must be a positive easement, as opposed to a negative easement such as the right to receive light, support, air or water – see Gale on Easements 19^th ed (2012), para 1-01 and footnote 3. (It is suggested in the text that the right to emit noise etc represent a third category of easement, because they merely involve actions on the dominant land, but, as the footnote states, the easement is not to carry on the activity on the dominant land but to emit noise over or into the servient land, which is a positive easement). In every case that I can conceive, the acquisition of a positive easement can only arise from the owner or occupier of the putative dominant land doing something which would be a wrong against the owner or occupier of the putative servient land – normally trespassing: see the list of positive easements in Gale, para 1-74.

For some time now, it has been generally accepted that it is not a defence to a claim in nuisance to show that the claimant acquired, or started to occupy, her property after the nuisance had started – ie that it is no defence that the claimant has come to the nuisance. This proposition was clearly stated in Bliss 4 Bing NC 183, 186 per Tindal CJ. Coming to the nuisance appears to have been assumed not to be a defence in Sturges v Bridgman 11 Ch D 852. And in London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Co v Truman (1885) LR 11 App Cas 45, 52, Lord Halsbury LC described the idea that it was a defence to nuisance as an “old notion … long since exploded” and he also said that “whether the man went to the nuisance or the nuisance came to the man, the rights are the same” in Fleming v Hislop (1886) LR 11 App Cas 686, 697.

More recently, in Miller v Jackson [1977] 1 QB 966, 986-987, the majority of the Court of Appeal held that the principle was well-established. However, Lord Denning MR, in the minority, considered that the proper approach was for court to “balance the right of the cricket club to continue playing cricket on their cricket ground”, as they had done for 70 years, “as against the right of the householder”, whom he described as “a newcomer” who had built “a house on the edge of the cricket ground which four years ago was a field where cattle grazed”: see pp 976 and 981. He held that there was no nuisance given that the cricket club had “spent money, labour and love in the making of [the pitch]: and they have the right to play upon it as they have done for 70 years”, and answered with a resounding no his own rhetorical (in both senses of the word) question whether this was “all to be rendered useless to them by the thoughtless and selfish act of an estate developer in building right up to the edge of it?”: see p 978.

Geoffrey Lane LJ (with whom Cumming-Bruce LJ agreed) accepted, albeit with some regret, that it was not for the Court of Appeal “to alter a rule which has stood for so long”, namely “that it is no answer to a claim in nuisance for the defendant to show that the plaintiff brought the trouble on his own head by building or coming to live in a house so close to the defendant’s premises that he would inevitably be affected by the defendant’s activities, where no one had been affected previously”: p 987. Accordingly, he concluded that the claim in nuisance was made out.

The respondents suggest that there is authority prior to the decision in Bliss 4 Bing 183, which supports the contention that the law was somewhat different in earlier times. Leeds v Shakerley (1599) Cro Eliz 751 was cited as an authority for the proposition that coming to the nuisance was a defence, but it may well be explained on the ground that the wrong complained of was the single act of diverting a watercourse, as opposed to the continuing loss of the watercourse. In his Commentaries on the Laws of England 1^st ed, (1765-1769), Vol II Chap 26, p 403, Blackstone, after explaining that a defendant can be liable in nuisance for setting up a tannery near my home, continues “but if he is first in possession of the air and I fix my habitation near him, the nuisance is of my own seeking, and must continue”. And in the criminal, public nuisance, case of R v Cross (1826) 2 Car & P 483, 484, Abbott CJ said that a defendant whose trade was said to be a nuisance to a householder or a user of a road “would be entitled to continue his trade [if] his trade [had been] legal before the erection of the houses in the one case, and the making of the road in the other”.

In my view, the law is clear, at least in a case such as the present, where the claimant in nuisance uses her property for essentially the same purpose as that for which it has been used by her predecessors since before the alleged nuisance started: in such a case, the defence of coming to the nuisance must fail. For over 180 years it has been assumed and authoritatively stated to be the law that it is no defence for a defendant to a nuisance claim to argue that the claimant came to the nuisance. With the dubious 16^th century exception of Leeds Cro Eliz 751, there is no authority the other way, as the observations of Blackstone and Abbott CJ were concerned with cases where the defendant’s activities had originally not been a nuisance, and had only become an arguable nuisance as a result of a change of use (due to construction works) on the claimant’s property.

Furthermore, the notion that coming to the nuisance is no defence is consistent with the fact that nuisance is a property-based tort, so that the right to allege a nuisance should, as it were, run with the land. It would also seem odd if a defendant was no longer liable for nuisance owing to the fact that the identity of his neighbour had changed, even though the use of his neighbour’s property remained unchanged. Quite apart from this, the concerns expressed by Lord Denning in Miller [1977] 1 QB 966 would not apply where a purchasing claimant has simply continued with the use of the property which had been started before the defendant’s alleged nuisance-causing activities started.

There is much more room for argument that a claimant who builds on, or changes the use of, her property, after the defendant has started the activity alleged to cause a nuisance by noise, or any other emission offensive to the senses, should not have the same rights to complain about that activity as she would have had if her building work or change of use had occurred before the defendant’s activity had started. That raises a rather different point from the issue of coming to the nuisance, namely whether an alteration in the claimant’s property after the activity in question has started can give rise to a claim in nuisance if the activity would not have been a nuisance had the alteration not occurred.

The observations I have quoted from Blackstone and Abbot CJ were in the context of cases where the defendant’s activity only becomes a potential nuisance after a change of use or building work on the claimant’s property, and they therefore provide some support for the defendant in such a case. However, in both Sturges and Miller, it appears clear that the defendant’s activities pre-dated the plaintiff’s construction work, and it was only as a result of that work and the subsequent use of the new building that the activities became a nuisance. However, Miller was not concerned with damage to the senses, but with physical encroachment on, and potential physical damage to, the plaintiffs and their property (through cricket balls). In Sturges, the only issue raised by the unsuccessful defendant was prescription, the nuisance at least arguably involved more than offence to the senses, and the plaintiff’s construction work merely involved an extension to an existing building (see at 11 Ch D 852-853, 854, 860-861).

It is unnecessary to decide this point on this appeal, but it may well be that it could and should normally be resolved by treating any pre-existing activity on the defendant’s land, which was originally not a nuisance to the claimant’s land, as part of the character of the neighbourhood – at least if it was otherwise lawful. After all, until the claimant built on her land or changed its use, the activity in question will, ex hypothesi, not have been a nuisance. This is consistent with the notion that nuisance claims should be considered by reference to what Lord Goff referred to as the “give and take as between neighbouring occupiers of land” quoted in para 5 above (and some indirect support for such a view may be found in Sturges, at pp 865-866).

On this basis, where a claimant builds on, or changes the use of, her land, I would suggest that it may well be wrong to hold that a defendant’s pre-existing activity gives rise to a nuisance provided that (i) it can only be said to be a nuisance because it affects the senses of those on the claimant’s land, (ii) it was not a nuisance before the building or change of use of the claimant’s land, (iii) it is and has been, a reasonable and otherwise lawful use of the defendant’s land, (iv) it is carried out in a reasonable way, and (v) it causes no greater nuisance than when the claimant first carried out the building or changed the use. (This is not intended to imply that in any case where one or more of these requirements is not satisfied, a claim in nuisance would be bound to succeed.)

It would appear that the Court of Appeal adopted this approach in Kennaway v Thompson [1981] QB 88. In that case, Lawton LJ seems to have assumed that the noise made by the defendant’s motorboats on the neighbouring lake should not be treated as a nuisance in so far as it was at the same level as when the plaintiff built her house nearby, and was a reasonable use reasonably carried out. However, a subsequent and substantial increase in the level of noise (due to larger boats and increased proximity to the plaintiff’s house) and in the frequency of activity did constitute a nuisance.

Accordingly, it appears clear to me that it is no defence for a defendant who is sued in nuisance to contend that the claimant came to the nuisance, although it may well be a defence, at least in some circumstances, for a defendant to contend that, as it is only because the claimant has changed the use of, or built on, her land that the defendant’s pre-existing activity is claimed to have become a nuisance, the claim should fail.

The assessment of the character of the locality for the purpose of assessing whether a defendant’s activities constitute a nuisance is a classic issue of fact and judgment for the judge trying the case. Sometimes, it may be difficult to identify the precise extent of the locality for the purpose of the assessment, or the precise words to describe the character of the locality, but any attempt to give general guidance on such issues risks being unhelpful or worse.

However, such questions can give rise to points of principle on which an appellate court can give guidance. Thus, the concept of “the character” of the locality may be too monolithic in some cases, and a better description may often be something like “the established pattern of uses” in the locality.

In this case, the ground on which the Court of Appeal overturned the judge’s decision was that he had wrongly failed to take into account the respondents’ activities at the Stadium and the Track when considering the character of the locality. The appellants contend that the judge was right to disregard those activities.

The issue therefore is whether, and if so to what extent, the use to which the defendant actually puts his property can or should be relied on when assessing the character of the locality for the purpose of assessing whether the claimant has made out her case that those activities constitute a nuisance.

It seems clear that the character of the locality must be assessed by reference to the position as it is as a matter of fact, save to the extent that any departure from reality, or artificial assumption, should be made as a matter of logic or legal requirement (the presumption of reality). Accordingly, in a nuisance claim, I accept that one starts, as it were, with the proposition that the defendant’s activities are to be taken into account when assessing the character of the locality.

This approach accords with what was said by Lord Westbury in St Helen’s Smelting 11 HL Cas 642, 650, namely:

Where I part company with the Court of Appeal is on the issue of whether one ignores the fact that those activities may constitute a nuisance to the claimant. In my view, to the extent that those activities are a nuisance to the claimant, they should be left out of account when assessing the character of the locality, or, to put it another way, they should be notionally stripped out of the locality when assessing its character. Thus, in the present case, where the judge concluded that the activities at the Stadium and the Track were actually carried on in such a way as to constitute a nuisance, although they could be carried on so as not to cause a nuisance, the character of the locality should be assessed on the basis that (i) it includes the Stadium and the Track, and (ii) they could be used for speedway, stockcar, and banger racing and for motocross respectively, but (iii) only to an extent which would not cause a nuisance.

In so far as the respondents’ activities at the Stadium and the Track cause no nuisance, they are lawful. There is therefore no reason to disregard them when assessing the character of the neighbourhood. Indeed, it would be unrealistic, and indeed unfair on the respondents, if those activities were disregarded. However, in so far as the activities are unlawful, in particular in so far as they constitute a nuisance to the appellants, it would seem to me to be illogical, as well as unfair to the appellants, to take those activities into account. It would involve the respondents invoking their own wrong against the appellants in order to justify their continuing to commit that very wrong against the appellants.

The Court of Appeal appears to have accepted at para 75 of Jackson LJ’s judgment that, if the respondents had used the Stadium or the Track in breach of planning conditions, a claim in nuisance may well have been made out. But the reason for that must be that a use in breach of planning law is unlawful and should therefore not be taken into account when assessing the character of the locality (unless, perhaps, it was shown that planning permission was likely to be forthcoming). It appears to me that the same conclusion should, as a matter of logic, indeed perhaps a fortiori, apply to a use which constitutes the very nuisance of which the appellants are complaining.

The respondents rely on the fact that the activities carried on at the Stadium and the Track had been going on for many years before the judge made his assessment of the character of the neighbourhood. As Jackson LJ put it [2012] 1 WLR 2127, paras 69 and 72, these activities were “an established feature, indeed a dominant feature, of the locality” and “one of the noise characteristics of the locality” by the time that the appellants brought their claim. However, in so far as those activities were being carried on unlawfully, for instance because they give rise to a nuisance to the claimants making the nuisance claim, they should not be taken into account when assessing the character of the locality, whether they have been going on for a few days or many years.

Of course, once the nuisance has been going on for 20 years, the position may be different, as the respondents may well have obtained a right to cause what would otherwise be a nuisance. I should perhaps add that if a defendant’s actual activities have been held to be a nuisance by the court, but the court has then decided to refuse an injunction and award damages instead, then, whether or not the activities can be described as “lawful”, it would in my view be proper to take them into account as part of the character of the locality: they have effectively been sanctioned by the court.

I do not consider that this conclusion is inconsistent with the reasoning of the Court of Appeal in Rushmer v Polsue & Alfieri Ltd [1906] 1 Ch 234, affirmed [1907] AC 121. In my view, the brief opinion of Lord Loreburn LC at pp 122-123, encapsulates the effect of the judgments of Stirling and Cozens-Hardy LJJ in the Court of Appeal, namely that (i) whether an activity gives rise to a nuisance may depend on the character of the particular locality, (ii) the trial judge rightly directed himself as to the law, and (iii) there was no reason to think that he had not applied his own directions to the facts of the case (and I think that the rather discursive judgment of Vaughan Williams LJ is to much the same effect). The only relevant point for present purposes which I can discern from the reasoning of the Court of Appeal is that an activity can be a nuisance even if it conforms to the character of the locality – a point made by all three members of the court, perhaps most clearly by Cozens-Hardy LJ at pp 250-251. But that is entirely consistent with the above analysis.

It must be acknowledged, however, that there appears to be an element of circularity in the notion that, when assessing the character of the locality, one has to ignore the defendant’s activities if, or to the extent that, they constitute a nuisance, given that the point one is ultimately seeking to decide is whether the defendant’s activities amount to a nuisance. However, it seems to me that there should be no real problem in this connection. In many cases, it is fairly clear whether or not a defendant’s activities constitute a nuisance once one has established the facts, and nice questions as to the precise identification of the locality or its character do not have to be addressed. In those cases where the precise character of the locality is of importance, the point should not cause much difficulty either. In this case, for example, the question for the judge was the extent to which the noise levels from the Stadium and the Track were or would be acceptable in what was a sparsely populated area, with a couple of small villages and a military airfield between a mile and two miles away, and he answered it by taking the noise levels at other well-established racing circuits elsewhere in the country.

However, in some cases, there will be an element of circularity. In such cases, the court may have to go through an iterative process when considering what noise levels are acceptable when assessing the character of the locality and assessing what constitutes a nuisance. Nonetheless, the circularity involved in my conclusion does give cause for concern.

The concern is, however, allayed once one considers the two other possible approaches. Either one ignores the activity in question altogether when assessing the character of the locality. That may often be the simplest and fairest way of dealing with the issue but, at least in some cases, it could be unfair on a defendant in a nuisance case. Or one adopts a solution which is both even more circular than the one which I prefer, and surprising in its consequences, namely the approach taken by the Court of Appeal. If the activity which causes the alleged nuisance is taken into account, without modification, as part of the character of the locality, it would mean that there could rarely be a successful claim for nuisance, as I see it. If the matters complained of by the claimant are part of the character of the locality, then it is hard to see how they could be unacceptable by a standard which is to be assessed by reference to that very character. Furthermore, to the extent that the defendant’s activities constitute a nuisance, it seems wrong that he should be able to have them taken account when assessing the character of the locality: he would be relying on his own wrong against the claimant.

Accordingly, I conclude that a defendant, faced with a contention that his activities give rise to a nuisance, can rely on those activities as constituting part of the character of the locality, but only to the extent that those activities do not constitute a nuisance – and to avoid any misunderstanding, if the activities couldn’t be carried out without creating a nuisance, then they would have to be entirely discounted when assessing the character of the neighbourhood.

Similarly, any other activity in the neighbourhood can properly be taken into account when assessing the character of the neighbourhood, to the extent that it does not give rise to an actionable nuisance or is otherwise unlawful. There will, no doubt, frequently be many uses which may not have obtained a specific sanction (through being agreed to by the claimant, through a prescriptive right or through the court refusing an injunction), but which are unobjectionable as a matter of law, and may therefore properly be taken into account.

In addition, as Lord Carnwath says at para 185 below, the fact that it is not open to a neighbouring claimant to object to the defendant’s activities simply because they emit noise does not mean that the defendant is free to carry on those activities in any way he wishes. The claimant is entitled to expect the defendant to take all reasonable steps to ensure that the noise is kept to a reasonable minimum, consistent with what was said by Bramwell B in Bamford 3 B & S 62 (see para 5 above). This is consistent with the approach taken by the court in relation to the noise temporarily caused by building works - see eg Andreae v Selfridge & Co Ltd [1938] 1 Ch 1, 7.

The interrelationship of planning permission and nuisance has been considered in a number of cases, and has been discussed in a number of articles and books. The grant of planning permission for a particular use is potentially relevant to a nuisance claim in two ways. First, the grant, or terms and conditions, of a planning permission may permit the very noise (or other disturbance) which is alleged by the claimant to constitute a nuisance. In such a case, the question is the extent, if any, to which the planning permission can be relied on as a defence to the nuisance claim. Secondly, the grant, or terms and conditions, of a planning permission may permit the defendant’s property or another property in the locality to be used for a certain purpose, so that the question is how far that planning permission can be relied on by the defendant as changing the character of the locality.

As explained in para 18 above, the judge effectively by-passed these issues by concluding that the grant of planning permission should not be taken into account when assessing whether the respondents’ activities at the Stadium or the Track constituted a nuisance, for two reasons. The first reason was that the permissions in question were personal, and the second was that they only permitted those activities at certain times. I find the first reason largely unconvincing and the second reason baffling.

The fact that a planning permission for a particular use is personal does not alter the fact that it removes the bar which would otherwise exist on that use, and that the use is acceptable in planning terms at least if carried on by, or on behalf of, the very person who is carrying it on. However, there is something in the point that, by granting a permission which was both permanent and personal, the planning authority was, as it were, hedging its bets – a view supported by the fact that the question whether to grant planning permission was controversial. Nonetheless, the fact remains that the use in question did have planning permission.

I fail to understand why the restriction as to number of days and the time limitations contained in an otherwise relevant planning permission should invalidate its relevance to the issue of nuisance. Apart from the inherent illogicality of the judge’s conclusion, such restrictions and limitations were no doubt imposed, at least in part, in the interests of those in the neighbourhood of the Stadium and Track. Accordingly, I agree with the Court of Appeal that the judge’s reasons for refusing to take into account the fact that planning permissions had been granted for the activities carried on by the respondents are unsupportable.

However, that leaves open the question as to what weight, if any, should be given to the fact that planning permission has been granted for the very activities which a claimant contends give rise to a nuisance by noise. More particularly, what weight, if any, should be given to the fact that there is a planning permission for a use which will inevitably give rise to the noise which is said to constitute a nuisance, and/or which contains terms or conditions which specifically allow the emission of the noise which is said by a claimant to constitute a nuisance?

The implementation of a planning permission can give rise to a change in the character of the locality, but, subject to one possible point, it is no different from any other building work or change of use which does not require planning permission. Thus, if the implementation of a planning permission results in the creation of a nuisance to a claimant, then, subject to one possible point, it cannot be said that the implementation has led to a change in the character of the locality - save, as explained above, (i) to the extent that the implementation could have been effected in a way which would not have created a nuisance, or (ii) if the defendant can show a prescriptive right to create the nuisance, or (iii) the court has decided to award the claimant damages rather than an injunction in respect of the nuisance.

I have described the conclusions in the preceding paragraph as being “subject to one possible point”. That point is the extent, if any, to which a defendant, in seeking to rebut a claim in nuisance, can rely on the fact that the grant, or terms and conditions, of a planning permission permit the very noise (or other disturbance) which is alleged by the claimant to constitute the nuisance (or which is relied on by the defendant as forming part of the character of the locality).

In the Court of Appeal, Jackson LJ discussed the cases in which the relationship between planning decisions and claims in nuisance had been considered. In Gillingham Borough Council v Medway (Chatham) Dock Co Ltd [1993] QB 343, 359, Buckley J accepted that “planning permission is not a licence to commit a nuisance”, but he went on to say that “a planning authority can, through its development plans and decisions, alter the character of a neighbourhood”. As Jackson LJ explained [2012] 1 WLR 2117, para 57, even though the implementation of the planning permission in Gillingham resulted in “noise, vibration, dust and fumes [which] caused serious disturbance local residents, … Buckley J dismissed the claim for public nuisance”. In the following paragraph of his judgment, having described that as a “[h]arsh … outcome”, Jackson LJ said it was nonetheless a correct outcome, as the planning authority “had made a decision in the public interest and the consequences had to be accepted.”

Jackson LJ seems to have concluded that the same reasoning applied in Hirose Electrical UK Ltd v Peak Ingredients Ltd [2011] Env LR 680: see para 62. However, he also accepted in para 59 that it was not open to a defendant in a nuisance claim to be able to rely on a planning permission for “a change of use of a very small piece of land”, which was the basis of the decision of the Court of Appeal in Wheeler v JJ Saunders Ltd [1996] Ch 19. In that case, Staughton LJ suggested that only “a strategic planning decision affected by considerations of public interest” would assist a defendant in a nuisance claim, and Peter Gibson LJ, while plainly dubious about the reasoning in Gillingham, suggested that it could only apply in relation to a “major development”: see pp 30 and 35. Further, as I read the analysis of Jackson LJ at para 66, he also thought that that reason justified the decision of the Court of Appeal in Watson v Croft Promosport Ltd [2009] 3 All ER 249.

It seems to me that the effect of Jackson LJ’s analysis is that, where the planning permission is granted for a use of the defendant’s property which inevitably results in, or specifically permits, what would otherwise be a nuisance to the claimant, that use is to be treated as part of the character of the locality, if the permission relates to a large area, but not if it relates to a small area. Further, as is apparent from the contrasting outcomes in Gillingham and Hirose, as against Wheeler and Watson, where the planning permission for the nuisance-making activity is “strategic” in nature or relates to a “major development”, it would defeat the claim for nuisance, whereas where it is for a small area, it would have no effect on the nuisance claim. As mentioned in para 73 above, that is scarcely surprising, as once one accepts that the noise complained of forms part of the character of the locality for the purpose of considering what constitutes a nuisance, it is hard to see how that very noise could be held to be a nuisance.

In my judgment, the conclusion reached by the Court of Appeal on this issue is unsatisfactory, both in principle and in practice, although it is only fair to add that they may understandably have considered that their hands were tied by the decisions mentioned in paras 84-86 above. Logically, the fact that the alleged nuisance arising from the defendant’s property is permitted by the planning authority should be a decisive factor, a relevant factor, or an irrelevant factor when assessing whether it is a nuisance. Which of those three possibilities applies should not depend on whether the permission relates to a large or small area of land. Furthermore, while Jackson LJ was at pains to emphasise that the grant of planning permission would not defeat a nuisance claim, it seems to me that that was precisely the effect of a planning permission for a large area, according to the reasoning of Buckley J in Gillingham, of the Court of Appeal in Watson,and of Jackson LJ in this case.

It also would be somewhat paradoxical if the greater the likely disagreeable impact of a change of use permitted by the planning authorities, the harder it would be for a claimant to establish a claim in nuisance. Yet that seems to be the effect of Jackson LJ’s analysis, as the greater the area covered by the planning permission, (i) the more likely it is to provide a defence to a claim in nuisance, and (ii) the more intrusive any noise or other intrusion is likely to be. Quite apart from this, it is hard to know what is meant by a large area.

The grant of planning permission for a particular development does not mean that that development is lawful. All it means is that a bar to the use imposed by planning law, in the public interest, has been removed. Logically, it might be argued, the grant of planning permission for a particular activity in 1985 or 2002 should have no more bearing on a claim that that activity causes a nuisance than the fact that the same activity could have occurred in the 19^th century without any permission would have had on a nuisance claim in those days.

Quite apart from this, it seems wrong in principle that, through the grant of a planning permission, a planning authority should be able to deprive a property-owner of a right to object to what would otherwise be a nuisance, without providing her with compensation, when there is no provision in the planning legislation which suggests such a possibility. This point is reinforced when one turns to sections 152 and 158 of the Planning Act 2008: section 158 expressly excludes claims in nuisance by neighbours as a result of the use of a property consequent upon a ministerial order permitting that use, and section 152 provides for appropriate compensation where a neighbour would, but for section 158, have had a claim in nuisance. It is also to be noted that section 76 of the Civil Aviation Act 1982 expressly excludes an action for nuisance owing to aircraft, but section 1 of the Land Compensation Act 1973 provides for compensation for neighbours (including in respect of nuisance by noise attributable to aircraft) when land is developed as an “aerodrome”.

As for practical considerations, I am not impressed by the suggested difference between “a strategic planning decision affected by considerations of public interest” (or a planning decision relating to a “major development”) and other planning decisions. No doubt all planning applications take into account the public interest, and the difference between a “strategic” planning permission (or a planning permission for a “major development”), and other planning permissions seems to me to be a recipe for uncertainty.

In my view, therefore, Carnwath LJ was right when he said in Barr v Biffa Waste Services Ltd [2013] QB 455, para 46(ii), that

Peter Gibson LJ expressed much the same view in Wheeler at 35, where he suggested that “[t]he court should be slow to acquiesce in the extinction of private rights without compensation as a result of administrative decisions which cannot be appealed and are difficult to challenge”. In an observation that also relates to the final topic raised on this appeal, he added that, where “a major development altering the character of a neighbourhood with wide consequential effects such as required a balancing of competing public and private interests before permission was granted”, he could “well see that in such a case the public interest must be allowed to prevail and that it would be inappropriate to grant an injunction (though whether that should preclude any award of damages in lieu is a question which may need further consideration)”.

Accordingly, I consider that the mere fact that the activity which is said to give rise to the nuisance has the benefit of a planning permission is normally of no assistance to the defendant in a claim brought by a neighbour who contends that the activity cause a nuisance to her land in the form of noise or other loss of amenity.

A planning authority has to consider the effect of a proposed development on occupiers of neighbouring land, but that is merely one of the factors which has to be taken into account. The planning authority can be expected to balance various competing interests, which will often be multifarious in nature, as best it can in the overall public interest, bearing in mind relevant planning guidelines. Some of those factors, such as many political and economic considerations which properly may play a part in the thinking of the members of a planning authority, would play no part in the assessment of whether a particular activity constitutes a nuisance – unless the law of nuisance is to be changed fairly radically. Quite apart from this, when granting planning permission for a change of use, a planning authority would be entitled to assume that a neighbour whose private rights might be infringed by that use could enforce those rights in a nuisance action; it could not be expected to take on itself the role of deciding a neighbour’s common law rights.

However, there will be occasions when the terms of a planning permission could be of some relevance in a nuisance case. Thus, the fact that the planning authority takes the view that noisy activity is acceptable after 8.30 am, or if it is limited to a certain decibel level, in a particular locality, may be of real value, at least as a starting point as Lord Carnwath says in para 218 below, in a case where the claimant is contending that the activity gives rise to a nuisance if it starts before 9.30 am, or is at or below the permitted decibel level. While the decision whether the activity causes a nuisance to the claimant is not for the planning authority but for the court, the existence and terms of the permission are not irrelevant as a matter of law, but in many cases they will be of little, or even no, evidential value, and in other cases rather more.

The evidence before the planning authority when it was deciding to grant planning permission may also be before the court when deciding a nuisance claim. This evidence will often consist of letters or other submissions from neighbours (sometimes including the claimant), expert assessments, and advice from planning officers. The weight to be given to this sort of evidence obviously depends very much on the facts of the particular case, but, in a nuisance case with live witnesses, it will be likely to be of significantly less value if the people who produced the documents are not available to be cross-examined.

It should be added that I am very dubious about the notion that it would always be safe to assume that the reasons given by planning officers for recommending that planning permission be granted were the actual reasons which the planning authority had in mind when granting planning permission. While the planning officers’ reasons would normally feature large in the minds of members of the planning committee, it would be little short of naïve to assume that even the majority of those members who were in favour of granting permission agreed with all those reasons, or had no other reasons. Where a planning authority is defending a public law attack on the grant of a planning permission, and the only positive evidence of its reasons for the grant of the permission are those contained in the planning officer’s advice, and the authority has adduced no evidence to suggest that it had not accepted those reasons (and there is no other evidence to suggest otherwise), I can see some ground for making the assumption. However, where the issue arises in private law proceedings in which the planning authority is not a party and the planning permission itself is not under attack, and in which there is normally oral evidence, I do not think it would be necessarily correct to make such an assumption. Whether it would be right to make the assumption in a particular case would depend on the evidence, including the contemporary documentation and possibly expert evidence, as well as on the arguments.

It is right to add that I should not be taken as necessarily suggesting that the actual decision that there was no liability in nuisance in Gillingham [1993] QB 343 was wrong, although much of Buckley J’s reasoning, despite the fact that it was approved in the dissenting judgment of Lord Cooke of Thorndon in Hunter [1997] AC 655, 722, cannot stand. As Lord Carnwath points out in para 203 below, the alternative basis for the decision in Gillingham, which was based on discretion, was probably right.

As explained in paras 24-25 above, in addition to awarding the appellants damages for the nuisance by noise which they had suffered in the past, the judge granted them an injunction limiting the levels of noise which could be emitted from the Stadium and the Track, and he also gave liberty to apply. He was not invited to award the appellants damages instead of an injunction. On this appeal, however, the respondents contend that, if the judge was right in concluding that their activities at the Stadium and the Track constituted a nuisance, then this was a case where he ought to have awarded damages instead of an injunction.

Where a claimant has established that the defendant’s activities constitute a nuisance, prima facie the remedy to which she is entitled (in addition to damages for past nuisance) is an injunction to restrain the defendant from committing such nuisance in the future; of course, the precise form of any injunction will depend very much on the facts of the particular case. However, ever since Lord Cairns’ Act (the Chancery Amendment Act 1858 (21 & 22 Vict c 27)), the court has had power to award damages instead of an injunction in any case, including a case of nuisance - see now section 50 of the Senior Courts Act 1981. Where the court decides to refuse the claimant an injunction to restrain a nuisance, and instead awards her damages, such damages are conventionally based on the reduction in the value of the claimant’s property as a result of the continuation of the nuisance. Subject to what I say in paras 128-131 below, this is clearly the appropriate basis for assessing damages, given that nuisance is a property-related tort and what constitutes a nuisance is judged by the standard of the ordinary reasonable person.

The question which arises is what, if any, principles govern the exercise of the court’s jurisdiction to award damages instead of an injunction. The case which is probably most frequently cited on the question is Shelfer v City of London Electric Lighting Co [1895] 1 Ch 287, but there has been a substantial number of cases in which judges have considered the issue, some before, and many others since. For present purposes, it is necessary to consider Shelfer and some of the subsequent cases, which were more fully reviewed by Mummery LJ in Regan v Paul Properties DPF No 1 Ltd [2007] Ch 135, paras 35-59.

In Shelfer, the Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge’s decision to grant an injunction to restrain noise and vibration. Lindley LJ said at pp 315-316:

A L Smith LJ said at 322-323, in a frequently cited passage:

Significant obiter observations were subsequently made on the question in Colls v Home & Colonial Store Ltd [1904] AC 179, where the House of Lords reversed the courts below who had concluded that the defendant had infringed the plaintiff’s right to light (and had awarded an injunction). Lord Macnaghten said at p 192 that he had “some difficulty within following out [the] rule” that “an injunction ought to be granted when substantial damages would be given at law”. He added at p 193 that “if there is really a question as to whether the obstruction is legal or not, and if the defendant has acted fairly and not in an unneighbourly spirit”, then he was “disposed to think that the court ought to incline to damages rather than to an injunction”. Lord Lindley (as he had by then become), at pp 212-213, after reviewing some of the previous cases on the topic, including Shelfer, described “the result of the foregoing review of the authorities” as “not altogether satisfactory”, and adding that “there is the uncertainty as to whether the proper remedy is an injunction or damages”, but that “the good sense of judges and juries may be relied upon for adequately protecting rights to light on the one hand and freedom from unnecessary burdens on the other”.

In Kine v Jolly[1905] 1 Ch 480, the Court of Appeal discharged an injunction restraining an interference to a right to light. At p 504, Cozens-Hardy LJ said he thought that “the tendency of the speeches in the House of Lords in Colls” was to go “a little further than was done in Shelfer”, and indicated that “as a general rule the court ought to be less free in granting mandatory injunctions than it was in years gone by”. Vaughan Williams LJ appears to have thought that the two cases involved different approaches, but concluded that each approach yielded the conclusion that there should be no injunction. Romer LJ, dissenting on the issue of liability, did not need to decide the point, and did not indicate which he preferred.

In the subsequent decision of Slack v Leeds Industrial Co-operative Society Ltd[1924] 2 Ch 475, which was also concerned with an interference with the plaintiff’s right to light, all three members of the Court of Appeal (Sir Ernest Pollock MR, and Warrington and Sargant LJJ) considered that nothing in Colls served to undermine the “good working rule” of A L Smith LJ in Shelfer, although they discharged a quia timet injunction and ordered an inquiry as to damages.

In Fishenden v Higgs & Hill Ltd(1935) 153 LT 128, another rights of light case, the Court of Appeal adopted a rather different approach, when allowing an appeal against Crossman J’s refusal to award damages instead of an injunction. Lord Hanworth MR (as Sir Ernest Pollock had become) observed that his judgment in Slack should not be read as saying that A L Smith LJ’s four tests “by themselves were now prescribed as the guiding tests for the court”. Indeed, he observed at p 139 that “we ought to incline against an injunction if possible”.

Romer LJ said at p 141 that A L Smith LJ’s four tests “were not intended to be a fetter on the exercise of the court’s discretion”, and suggested that, while it was true that an injunction should be refused if those tests were satisfied, “it by no means follow[ed]” that an injunction should be granted if they were not. In deciding to overturn the injunction, Romer LJ was strongly influenced by the fact that the defendants had “acted fairly [and] in a neighbourly spirit” as well as by the conduct of the plaintiff. At p 144, Maugham LJ said that “the working rule laid down by A L Smith LJ” was not “a universal or even a sound rule in all cases of injury to light”, and said he preferred the approach of Lord Lindley in Shelfer and Colls.

In more recent times, the Court of Appeal seems to have assumed that the approach of Lindley and A L Smith LJJ in Shelfer represents the law, and indeed that the four tests suggested by A L Smith LJ are normally to be applied, so that, unless all four tests are satisfied, there was no jurisdiction to refuse an injunction. That seems to have been the approach of Geoffrey Lane LJ in Miller [1977] 1 QB 966 (discussed in paras 48-49 above), and of Lawton LJ in Kennaway [1981] QB 88 (discussed in para 57 above).

Jaggard v Sawyer [1995] 1 WLR 269, was a case where the Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge’s decision to award damages instead of an injunction restraining the defendant trespassing on the plaintiff’s land. In so doing, the judge effectively gave the defendant a right of way to his house over the plaintiff’s land, against the plaintiff’s will, in return for a capital payment from the defendant to the plaintiff (see pp 286-287).

At pp 282-283, Sir Thomas Bingham MR (with whom Kennedy LJ agreed), specifically tested the trial judge’s decision to award damages by reference to A L Smith LJ’s four tests, and emphasised that “the test is one of oppression, and the court should not slide into application of a general balance of convenience test”. He held that the judge had rightly concluded that the four tests were satisfied.

Millett LJ said at p 287 that “A L Smith LJ’s checklist has stood the test of time”, but emphasised that “it is only a working rule and does not purport to be an exhaustive statement of the circumstances in which damages may be awarded instead of an injunction”. As he immediately went on to emphasise on the next page, the decision whether or not to award damages instead of an injunction is a discretion. Accordingly, he said, the cases where judges have awarded or refused to award damages can be no more than “illustrationsof circumstances in which particular judges have exercised their discretion”. He also suggested that “[t]he outcome of any particular case usually turns on the question: would it in all the circumstances be oppressive to the defendant to grant the injunction to which the plaintiff is prima facie entitled?” He then went on to refer to the significance of the defendant’s state of mind, including openness, good faith, and understanding.

Some seven years ago, in Regan [2007] Ch 135, the Court of Appeal rejected the trial judge’s view that, where the defendant’s building interfered with the claimant’s right to light, the onus was on the claimant to show that damages were not an adequate remedy. In his judgment, Mummery LJ then effectively decided that an injunction should be granted on the basis that three of A L Smith LJ’s tests were not satisfied: see paras 70-73.

In Watson [2009] 3 All ER 249, the Court of Appeal reversed the trial judge’s decision to award damages instead of an injunction in a case where the nuisance was very similar in nature and cause to that alleged in this case. At para 44, Sir Andrew Morritt C described “the appropriate test” as having been “clearly established by the decision of the Court of Appeal in Shelfer”, namely “that damages in lieu of an injunction should only be awarded under ‘very exceptional circumstances’”. He also said that Shelfer “established that the circumstance that the wrongdoer is in some sense a public benefactor is not a sufficient reason for refusing an injunction”, although he accepted at para 51 that “the effect on the public” could properly be taken into account in a case “where the damage to the claimant is minimal”.

It seems to me that there are two problems about the current state of the authorities on this question of the proper approach for a court to adopt on the question whether to award damages instead of an injunction.

The first is what at best might be described as a tension, and at worst as an inconsistency, between two sets of judicial dicta since Shelfer. Observations in Slack, Miller, Kennaway, Regan,and Watson appear to support the notion that A L Smith LJ’s approach in Shelfer is generally to be adopted and that it requires an exceptional case before damages should be awarded in lieu of an injunction, whereas the approach adopted in Colls, Kine,and Fishenden seems to support a more open-minded approach, taking into account the conduct of the parties. In Jaggard, the Court of Appeal did not need to address the question, as even on the stricter approach it upheld the trial judge’s award of damages in lieu, although Millett LJ seems to have tried to reconcile the two approaches.

The second problem is the unsatisfactory way in which it seems that the public interest is to be taken into account when considering the issue whether to grant an injunction or award damages. The notion that it can be relevant where the damages are minimal, but not otherwise, as stated in Watson, seems very strange. Either the public interest is capable of being relevant to the issue or it is not. As part of this second problem, there is a question as to the extent to which it is relevant that the activity giving rise to the nuisance has the benefit of a planning permission.

So far as the first problem is concerned, the approach to be adopted by a judge when being asked to award damages instead of an injunction should, in my view, be much more flexible than that suggested in the recent cases of Regan and Watson. It seems to me that (i) an almost mechanical application of A L Smith LJ’s four tests,and (ii) an approach which involves damages being awarded only in “very exceptional circumstances”, are each simply wrong in principle, and give rise to a serious risk of going wrong in practice. (Quite apart from this, exceptionality may be a questionable guide in any event – see Manchester City Council v Pinnock (Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government intervening)[2011] 2 AC 104, para 51).

The court’s power to award damages in lieu of an injunction involves a classic exercise of discretion, which should not, as a matter of principle, be fettered, particularly in the very constrained way in which the Court of Appeal has suggested in Regan and Watson. And, as a matter of practical fairness, each case is likely to be so fact-sensitive that any firm guidance is likely to do more harm than good. On this aspect, I would adopt the observation of Millett LJ in Jaggard [1995] 1 WLR 269, 288, where he said:

Having approved that statement, it is only right to acknowledge that this does not prevent the courts from laying down rules as to what factors can, and cannot, be taken into account by a judge when deciding whether to exercise his discretion to award damages in lieu. Indeed, it is appropriate to give as much guidance as possible so as to ensure that, while the discretion is not fettered, its manner of exercise is as predictable as possible. I would accept that the prima facie position is that an injunction should be granted, so the legal burden is on the defendant to show why it should not. And, subject to one possible point, I would cautiously (in the light of the fact that each case turns on its facts) approve the observations of Lord Macnaghten in Colls[1904] AC 179, 193, where he said:

The one possible doubt that I have about this observation relates to the suggestion in the antepenultimate sentence that the court “ought to incline to damages” in the event he describes. If, as I suspect, Lord Macnaghten was simply suggesting that, if there was no prejudice to a claimant other than the bare fact of an interference with her rights, and there was no other ground for granting an injunction, I agree with him. However, it is right to emphasise that, when a judge is called on to decide whether to award damages in lieu of an injunction, I do not think that there should be any inclination either way (subject to the legal burden discussed above): the outcome should depend on all the evidence and arguments. Further, the sentence should not be taken as suggesting that there could not be any other relevant factors: clearly there could be. (It is true that Colls, like a number of the cases on the issue of damages in lieu, was concerned with rights of light, but I do not see such cases as involving special rules when it comes to this issue. Shelfer itself was not a right to light case; nor were Jaggard and Watson. However, in many cases involving nuisance by noise, there may be more wide-ranging issues and more possible forms of relief than in cases concerned with infringements of a right to light.)

Where does that leave A L Smith LJ’s four tests? While the application of any such series of tests cannot be mechanical, I would adopt a modified version of the view expressed by Romer LJ in Fishenden 153 LT 128, 141. First, the application of the four tests must not be such as “to be a fetter on the exercise of the court’s discretion”. Secondly, it would, in the absence of additional relevant circumstances pointing the other way, normally be right to refuse an injunction if those four tests were satisfied. Thirdly, the fact that those tests are not all satisfied does not mean that an injunction should be granted.

As for the second problem, that of public interest, I find it hard to see how there could be any circumstances in which it arose and could not, as a matter of law, be a relevant factor. Of course, it is very easy to think of circumstances in which it might arise but did not begin to justify the court refusing, or, as the case may be, deciding, to award an injunction if it was otherwise minded to do so. But that is not the point. The fact that a defendant’s business may have to shut down if an injunction is granted should, it seems to me, obviously be a relevant fact, and it is hard to see why relevance should not extend to the fact that a number of the defendant’s employees would lose their livelihood, although in many cases that may well not be sufficient to justify the refusal of an injunction. Equally, I do not see why the court should not be entitled to have regard to the fact that many other neighbours in addition to the claimant are badly affected by the nuisance as a factor in favour of granting an injunction.

It is also right to mention planning permission in this context. In some cases, the grant of planning permission for a particular activity (whether carried on at the claimant’s, or the defendant’s, premises) may provide strong support for the contention that the activity is of benefit to the public, which would be relevant to the question of whether or not to grant an injunction. Accordingly, the existence of a planning permission which expressly or inherently authorises carrying on an activity in such a way as to cause a nuisance by noise or the like, can be a factor in favour of refusing an injunction and compensating the claimant in damages. This factor would have real force in cases where it was clear that the planning authority had been reasonably and fairly influenced by the public benefit of the activity, and where the activity cannot be carried out without causing the nuisance complained of. However, even in such cases, the court would have to weigh up all the competing factors.

In some such cases, the court may well be impressed by a defendant’s argument that an injunction would involve a loss to the public or a waste of resources on account of what may be a single claimant, or that the financial implications of an injunction for the defendant would be disproportionate to the damage done to the claimant if she was left to her claim in damages. In many such cases, particularly where an injunction would in practice stop the defendant from pursuing the activities, an injunction may well not be the appropriate remedy.

Since writing this, I have read with interest Lord Sumption’s suggestions as to how the law on the topic of damages instead of an injunction in nuisance cases might develop. At any rate on the face of it, I can see much merit in the proposals which he proffers. However, it would be inappropriate to go further than I have gone at this stage, in the light of the arguments which were raised on this appeal. There may well be objections, qualifications, and alternatives which could be made in relation to Lord Sumption’s suggested approach, and they should be considered before the law on this topic is developed further. In that connection, I see real force in what Lord Mance says in para 168.

A final point which it is right to mention on this issue is the measure of damages, where a judge decides to award damages instead of an injunction. It seems to me at least arguable that, where a claimant has a prima facie right to an injunction to restrain a nuisance, and the court decides to award damages instead, those damages should not always be limited to the value of the consequent reduction in the value of the claimant’s property. While double counting must be avoided, the damages might well, at least where it was appropriate, also include the loss of the claimant’s ability to enforce her rights, which may often be assessed by reference to the benefit to the defendant of not suffering an injunction.

Support for such an approach may be found in the reasoning in Jaggard [1995] 1 WLR 269, which suggests that this is a proper approach to damages where an injunction is refused to restrain a trespass, and damages were awarded instead. Sir Thomas Bingham MR said this at pp 281-282, when explaining and approving an earlier case where a judge had assessed damages for breach of a restrictive building covenant, which he then applied to the claim in Jaggard:

To the same effect, Millett LJ said this at p 292 in Jaggard:

However, there are factors which support the contention that damages in a nuisance case should never, or only rarely, be assessed by reference to the benefit to the defendant in no injunction being granted, as pointed out by Lord Carnwath in para 248 below. For that reason, as well as because we have not heard argument on the issue, it would be inappropriate for us to seek to decide on this appeal whether, and if so in what circumstances, damages could be recoverable on this basis in a nuisance claim.

There are differences between the various members of the Court on this final issue. Most, probably all, of these differences are ones of emphasis and detail rather than of principle, but I nonetheless accept that we are at risk of introducing a degree of uncertainty into the law. The nature of the issue, whether to award damages in lieu of an injunction, is such that a degree of uncertainty is inevitable, but that does not alter the fact that it should be kept to a reasonable minimum. Given that we are changing the practice of the courts, it is inevitable that, in so far as there can be clearer or more precise principles, they will have to be worked out in the way familiar to the common law, namely on a case by case basis.

Having dealt with the points of principle raised on this appeal, I can now turn to the application of those principles to the facts of this appeal.

First, there is no question of the respondents being able to rely on the fact that the appellants came to the nuisance, or any other similar argument. The appellants used their property, Fenland, as a residence, which was the same purpose to which it had been put ever since before the activities currently carried on at the Stadium and the Track had started.

Secondly, there is the relevance of the planning situation in relation to the appellants’ nuisance claim. As already explained (paras 77-79 above) the judge was wrong to hold that (i) the planning permission granted in 1985 and the CLEUD issued in 1997 in relation to the use of the Stadium, and (ii) the planning permission granted in 2002 for the use of the Track, were irrelevant for the purposes of the appellants’ nuisance claim on the ground that the planning permissions were personal and they and the CLEUD were for discontinuous periods. Accordingly, the two permissions and the CLEUD were, at least in principle, evidence which could have been taken into account.

However, I do not consider that the judge’s failure to take them into account can fairly be said to undermine his conclusion that the respondents’ activities at the Stadium and the Track constituted a nuisance. The CLEUD was of no relevance, other than as evidence which supported the argument that the activities to which it related had been going on for ten years before it had been applied for. The planning permissions showed that the planning authority considered that at least most of the uses of which the appellants complained were acceptable in planning terms, and turned their minds to some extent to noise pollution by limiting the frequency and the times of the activities.

Further, the judge’s failure to give any weight to the planning permissions or the CLEUD on the issue of nuisance does not call into question his ultimate conclusion on that issue in favour of the appellants. It was not the appellants’ case, nor was it the judge’s conclusion, that the current use of the Stadium and the Track was by any means necessarily inappropriate: the concern was over the level of noise, which was not a matter specifically covered by the planning permissions or the CLEUD (save the 2002 permission for the motocross activities on the Track). This is best illustrated by the judge’s concern to make an order which enabled the business at the Stadium and the Track to continue.

Quite apart from this, as already explained, the fact that a particular use has been granted planning permission is not normally a matter of much weight, and there was no reason to think that this was an exceptional case. On the contrary. The evidence showed that it was not an easy decision whether to grant the planning permissions, as was demonstrated by the initial temporary permissions, and the cautious nature of the planning officers’ recommendation. Further, the background documents to the planning permissions (including letters of support and opposition, and the planning officers’ reports) were available to the judge, and he took them into account, and there was a wealth of other evidence available to the judge at the trial, and that evidence was subject to cross-examination, and he took it all into account.

As I have already explained, the Court of Appeal took the view that the 1985 and 2002 planning permissions, given that they had been implemented, were highly relevant to, indeed effectively determinative of, the appellants’ claim in nuisance. For the reasons which I have given in paras 80-98 above, that was wrong (although understandable in the light of earlier decisions of the Court of Appeal), and, as I have just explained, although the Judge also went wrong on the issue of the relevance of the permissions, I do not think that his error justified interfering with his conclusion.

The third question is whether the Judge went wrong in holding that the respondents had failed to establish a right by prescription to create what would otherwise be a nuisance of noise at the Stadium. On that topic, I consider that the judge was right for the wrong reason. I do not consider that he was entitled to hold that the interruption for two years prevented the respondents obtaining the right to create what would otherwise be a nuisance of noise if they had otherwise satisfied the requirements for establishing such a right. If a person regularly causes a nuisance by noise through holding motocross events more than 20 times a year for a period of 20 years, save that during two years of that period, there are no such events, I consider that the requirements of a prescriptive right would be satisfied (subject, of course, to there being any of the normal defences).

In that connection, I have already referred in para 37 above to the judgments in Carr v Foster 3 QB 581. Mere non-use, or inactivity, for two out of 20 years, at least in the absence of other evidence, would be insufficient to justify a court concluding that an action which has been carried out for the other 18 years fairly consistently and to a significant extent in each of those years failed to justify the conclusion that a prescriptive right had been established. It is a question of degree, and that is shown by contrasting the facts of the present case and of Carr with those of White v Taylor (No 2) [1969] 1 Ch 160, where non-use for two periods, each more than five years, did defeat a prescription claim.

The essential question in a prescription case has been said to be whether the nature and degree of the activity of the putative dominant owner over the period of 20 years, taken as a whole, should make a reasonable person in the position of the putative servient owner aware that a continuous right to enjoyment is being asserted and ought to be challenged if it is intended to be resisted (see Gale op cit, para 4.54, and per Lord Walker in Lewis [2010] 2 AC 70, para 30). This somewhat circular and hypothetical test appears to involve questions of degree and judgment. However, one must take as a starting point the somewhat arbitrary, but at least clear, proposition that, where the use or activity in question has been carried on as of right for 20 years or more, then, absent special facts, the dominant owner gets a right to carry on the use or activity. Accordingly, the answer to my mind on the facts of this case is plain: assuming that the activities at the stadium and the Track had caused a nuisance over a period of at least 20 years, the putative servient owner should have appreciated what was being claimed. Given the consistent and substantial activities at the Stadium for all but two of those 20 or more years the two years’ interruption should not be capable of being a problem for the respondents’ prescriptive claim.

However, the reason why, in my view, the respondents fail to establish a prescriptive right to create what would otherwise be a nuisance in this case, is that, even allowing for the fact that gaps such as that discussed in the preceding two paragraphs would not be fatal to their claim, they did not show that their activities during a period of 20 years amounted to a nuisance. As explained in paras 35-37 above, in order to justify the establishment of a right to create a noise by prescription, it is not enough to show that the activity which now creates the noise has been carried on for 20 years. It is not even enough to show that the activity has created a noise for 20 years. What has to be established is that the activity has (or a combination of activities have) created a nuisance over 20 years. Otherwise, it could not be said that the putative servient owner had the opportunity to object to the nuisance, or could be said notionally to have agreed to it.

As acknowledged in paras 35-39 above, this requirement will often present evidential problems for a person seeking to establish by prescription a right to commit what would otherwise be a nuisance. Of course, the strictness of this requirement is mitigated by the fact that the nuisance does not need to have occurred anything like every day during the 20 years, as just explained.

In the present case, it seems to me that, on the findings made by the judge, and the evidence as explained by him, fell well short of establishing that the activities had caused a nuisance to Fenland for a continuous period of 20 years (even allowing for periods of no nuisance as in Carr) at any time between the commencement of the use of the Stadium in 1976 and the date on which these proceedings were issued in 2008.

Mr Relton (the appellants’ predecessor in title) apparently first formally complained of noise to the council in 1992 (only 16 years before the proceedings were brought), and this resulted in the abatement notices referred to in para 11 above. At least as recorded in the judgment, no witness appears to have suggested, through either first hand or hearsay evidence, either expressly or inferentially, that there was nuisance by noise to Fenland much before 1994. The appellants’ witnesses seem to have come to the area after 1990, and (with the exception of Mrs Relton) the respondents’ witnesses seem to have been in a similar position, and Mrs Relton denied that there was a significant noise problem (and indeed described her husband as over-sensitive to noise).

There is also an argument that the judge did not properly approach the question whether the respondents caused a nuisance by noise on the right basis, as he decided that Fenland was to be treated as being in a purely agricultural environment, rather than in an environment which included the Stadium and the Track used for activities which did not create a nuisance (as explained in para 65 above). There are passages in his judgment which suggest that he may have approached the issue on this basis. However, it is clear that he did not do so, as, in para 243 of his decision, he fixed the acceptable level of noise from the Stadium and Track by reference to the levels of noise emitted from land used for similar activities (see para 24 above).

The consequence of these conclusions is that, subject to a final point, the injunction granted by the judge should be restored (together with all the other terms, including the permission to apply).

The final point is whether the judge should have awarded damages rather than an injunction. Given that he was not asked to do so, it is scarcely surprising that he did not address this issue. Further, it is not an issue which an appellate court should determine when the trial judge was not asked to do so, save in the most exceptional circumstances. The decision whether to award damages instead of an injunction can be dependent on a number of issues, including the behaviour and attitude of the parties. It is therefore a matter on which the trial judge is particularly well positioned to assess in a case such as this, where there was substantial oral evidence. Further, a defendant who wishes to argue that the court should award damages rather than an injunction should make it clear that he wishes to do so well in advance of the hearing, not least because the claimant may wish to adduce documentary or oral evidence on that issue which she would not otherwise consider relevant. The appellants were not afforded such an opportunity in this case.

However, as Lord Clarke said in argument, it would be wrong to be very critical of the respondents for not raising the point at or before the trial as the decisions in Regan and Watson would have precluded the trial judge from awarding damages in lieu of an injunction, although it is right to add that the respondents should ideally have reserved their position on the point.

In my judgment, the fairest way to deal with the point that the judge should have awarded damages instead of an injunction is to refuse the respondents permission to raise it, but to hold that they should be free to raise the argument that the injunction granted by the judge should be discharged, and damages awarded instead under the provision in the judge’s order giving the parties permission to apply.

I should emphasise that, if such an application were made by the respondents, I am not in any way seeking to fetter the judge’s discretion when deciding whether to award damages instead, or seeking to suggest how that discretion might be exercised. No doubt the judge will carefully consider the effect of, and give such appropriate weight as he sees fit to, all the circumstances, including the evidence and arguments which he has already received, and any fresh evidence and argument which he sees fit to receive, in the light of the points made in paras 119-130 above.

As the first, second and fifth issues set out in para 6 above were raised by the respondents, and the third and fourth issues were raised by the appellants, the effect of this decision is that the appeal is allowed, and the order of Judge Seymour QC is restored.

I agree that this appeal should be allowed for the reasons given by Lord Neuberger.

It is, I think, worth pointing out that the question what impact the grant of planning permission should have on liability in tort for private nuisance and the question what remedies should be available for a nuisance are closely related. They both raise a broader issue of legal policy of some importance, namely how is one to reconcile public and private law in the domain of land use where they occupy much the same space?

I agree with Lord Neuberger that the existence of planning permission for a given use is of very limited relevance to the question whether that use constitutes a private nuisance. It may at best provide some evidence of the reasonableness of the particular use of land in question. But planning authorities are concerned with the public interest in development and land use, as that interest is defined in the planning legislation and any relevant development plans and policies. Planning powers do not exist to enforce or override private rights in respect of land use, whether arising from restrictive covenants, contracts, or the law of tort. Likewise, the question whether a neighbouring landowner has a right of action in nuisance in respect of some use of land has to be decided by the courts regardless of any public interest engaged.

What saves, or could save the law from anomaly and incoherence is the court’s discretion as to remedies. An injunction is a remedy with significant side-effects beyond the parties and the issues in the proceedings. Most uses of land said to be objectionable cannot be restrained by injunction simply as between the owner of that land and his neighbour. If the use of a site for (say) motocross is restrained by injunction, that prevents the activity as between the defendant and the whole world. Yet it may be a use which is in the interest of very many other people who derive enjoyment or economic benefits from it of precisely the kind with which the planning system is concerned. An injunction prohibiting the activity entirely will operate in practice in exactly the same way as a refusal of planning permission, but without regard to the factors which a planning authority would be bound to take into account. The obvious solution to this problem is to allow the activity to continue but to compensate the claimant financially for the loss of amenity and the diminished value of his property. In a case where planning permission has actually been granted for the use in question, there are particularly strong reasons for adopting this solution. It is what the law normally provides for when a public interest conflicts with a proprietary right.

The main question, as it seems to me, is not whether the judge in deciding on the appropriate remedy should take account of the public interest or, more generally, of interests which are not before the court. He will usually lack the information to do so effectively, and is in danger of stepping outside his main function of deciding the issue between the parties. The main question is whether the current principles of law governing the availability of injunctions are consistent with the public interest reflected in the successive and increasingly elaborate legislative schemes of development control which have existed in England since 1947.

The ordinary principle is that the court does not grant an injunction in a case where there is an adequate legal remedy. In particular, it does not do so where damages would be an adequate remedy. Where an injunction is granted, it is usually because the injury to the Claimant is “irreparable”, in the sense that money cannot atone for it. However, this principle has never been consistently followed in cases of nuisance. The leading case is Shelfer v City of London Electric Lighting Co[1895] 1 Ch 287 which created a strong presumption in favour of an injunction, to be displaced only in the four narrowly defined categories identified by AL Smith LJ at pp 322-323. The exceptions applied only to cases where the injury to the claimant was small and the grant of an injunction would be oppressive. In Colls v Home and Colonial Stores Ltd[1904] AC 179, 192, Lord Macnaghten wondered why an injunction should be granted “when substantial damages would be given at law”, and there were subsequent attempts to widen the discretion. But the courts have not taken the hint. In Regan v Paul Properties DPF No 1 Ltd[2007] Ch 135 and Watson v Croft Promosport Ltd[2009] 3 All ER 249 the Court of Appeal have reverted to substantially the same position as the Court of Appeal in Shelfer more than a century before.

The courts might have defended the special treatment of nuisance by pointing to the traditional attitude of equity to land as being unique, an approach which is exemplified in its willingness to grant specific performance of contracts for the sale of land. From this, it might have been concluded that paying the claimant enough to buy a comparable property elsewhere where there was no nuisance was not equivalent to letting him use his existing land free of the nuisance. In fact the Shelfer principle was based mainly on the court’s objection to sanctioning a wrong by allowing the defendant to pay for the right to go on doing it. This seems an unduly moralistic approach to disputes, and if taken at face value would justify the grant of an injunction in all cases, which is plainly not the law. In his dissenting judgment in the Court of Appeal in Co-operative Insurance Society Ltd v Argyll Stores (Holdings)Ltd [1996] Ch 286, 304 (subsequently upheld in the House of Lords [1998] AC 1), Millett LJ said:

In my view, the decision in Shelfer is out of date, and it is unfortunate that it has been followed so recently and so slavishly. It was devised for a time in which England was much less crowded, when comparatively few people owned property, when conservation was only beginning to be a public issue, and when there was no general system of statutory development control. The whole jurisprudence in this area will need one day to be reviewed in this court. There is much to be said for the view that damages are ordinarily an adequate remedy for nuisance and that an injunction should not usually be granted in a case where it is likely that conflicting interests are engaged other than the parties’ interests. In particular, it may well be that an injunction should as a matter of principle not be granted in a case where a use of land to which objection is taken requires and has received planning permission. However, at this stage, in the absence of argument on these points, I can do no more than identify them as calling for consideration in a case in which they arise.

I agree that the appeal should be allowed for the reasons given by Lord Neuberger.

In addition to their reasons for allowing this appeal, the judgments prepared by Lord Neuberger, Lord Sumption and Lord Carnwath address a number of wider issues which were argued before us. For the most part, I also agree with the way in which Lord Neuberger addresses these issues in his judgment.

It is common ground that a change in the intensity of a previous activity may, just as much as the introduction of a new activity, give rise to a nuisance. The fact that the nuisance is already being committed cannot make it part of the character of the locality (see Lord Neuberger’s judgment paragraphs 65 to 76). But Lord Neuberger (paragraphs 72 and 74) and Lord Carnwath (paragraph 187) suggest, as I see it, that such a change or the introduction of a new activity may in some circumstances and to some degree be compatible with the existing character of the locality, and to that extent not involve the creation of a nuisance. With or without planning permission, the character of an area may be susceptible over time to gradual change and development. Each step in the process may be said by itself to fit with the existing character and be largely imperceptible, though, ultimately, the difference resulting from the totality of all the steps may be considerable. In the meantime, those occupying property, living or working, in the area, will have had time to adapt. That is a quite different process from one brought about by an activity increased in intensity or introduced for the first time and bringing about a radical change over a relatively short period. In the latter case and to the extent that the increased or new activity goes beyond anything which would fit with the existing character of the locality, an aggrieved occupier can have cause for complaint about a resulting nuisance, unless and until the increased or new activity is allowed to continue as a nuisance either for 20 years without proceedings being issued or by a court by refusal of an injunction.

With regard to the significance of planning permission, I agree with what Lord Neuberger says in paragraphs 77 to 97 and 99. The reasoning in Gillingham Borough Council v Medway (Chatham) Dock Co Ltd [1993] QB 343 suggests that a development plan or a “strategic” planning decision adopted in the public interest can of itself bring about a corresponding major alteration in the character of a neighbourhood without any need to compensate for any private nuisance thereby caused. I regard that as unsustainable in principle and fairness. If the increase in an existing activity or the introduction of a new activity constitutes a nuisance in relation to the previously existing character of the locality, I see no basis for treating differently a decision to permit such an increase or new activity taken in the public interest by a development or planning authority. The general public interest may have led to a particular private interest being overlooked or overridden. If it is to be acceptable to permit this, then it should at least be permitted on a basis that affords compensation.

That is not to suggest that the grant, terms and conditions of a planning permission may not have some relevance in some nuisance cases, as Lord Neuberger indicates in his paragraphs 96 to 97 and also (in relation to remedy) in paragraph 118. As to the reliance which might be placed on planning officers’ reports, on which Lord Neuberger touches in paragraph 98, it seems to me that it must all depend on the nature of the decision and of the debate before the planning committee and so on all the circumstances (as I understand Lord Neuberger also to say in the last sentence of paragraph 98), and I prefer myself to say no more without rather more information about these in a specific case.

With regard to remedy, I am broadly in agreement with Lord Neuberger. However, I would adopt the qualifications made by Lord Carnwath in his paragraphs 246 and 247. I do not think that a grant of planning permission can give rise to any presumption that there should be no injunction, and, while I would, in a case where it was relevant, like to hear argument on this, I am not at present persuaded that cases on the right to light involve the same considerations as those arising, or are therefore necessarily helpful, where the question is the appropriate remedy in respect of a nuisance of the present different nature.

I would only add in relation to remedy that the right to enjoy one’s home without disturbance is one which I would believe that many, indeed most, people value for reasons largely if not entirely independent of money. With reference to Lord Sumption’s concluding paragraph, I would not therefore presently be persuaded by a view that “damages are ordinarily an adequate remedy for nuisance” and that “an injunction should not usually be granted in a case where it is likely that conflicting interests are engaged other than the parties’ interests” – a suggested example of the latter being given as a case where a use of land has received planning permission. I would see this as putting the significance of planning permission and public benefit too high, in the context of the remedy to be afforded for a private nuisance. As already indicated, I agree with Lord Neuberger’s nuanced approach.

I agree with the conclusions and reasoning of Lord Neuberger subject to one or two points. First, I agree that the fact that planning permission has been granted is capable of being relevant to an action in nuisance in a number of respects but, as Lord Carnwath has shown, the facts of such cases are so varied that it is difficult to lay down hard and fast rules. As so often, all depends upon the circumstances. However, I agree with Lord Neuberger, Lord Sumption and Lord Carnwath that the existence of planning permission for the activity complained of may well be of particular relevance to the remedy to be granted.

Secondly, I agree with Lord Neuberger at para 120 that the court’s power to award damages in lieu of an injunction involves a classic exercise of discretion which should not as a matter of principle be fettered. In these circumstances, in the absence of submissions on the point, I would wish to reserve the question upon whom the burden of proof should be placed on the question how that discretion should be exercised.

Thirdly, as I see it, the most important aspect of this case relates to the correct approach to remedies. In particular I agree with the views of Millett LJ in Co-operative Insurance Society Ltd v Argyll Stores (Holdings) Limited [1996] Ch 286 at 305, which was a dissenting judgment but was subsequently upheld by the House of Lords at [1986] AC 1. He concluded that the general principle is or should be that equitable relief will be granted where it is appropriate and not otherwise and that, where damages are an adequate remedy, it is inappropriate to grant equitable relief. Lord Sumption set out Millett LJ’s views at his para 160, as I read it, with approval. I entirely agree with Lord Sumption (at para 161) that the decision in Shelfer v City of London Electric Lighting Co [1895] 1 Ch 287 is out of date and that it is unfortunate that it has been followed so recently and so slavishly. Indeed, I would so hold now in this appeal, although (in the absence of submissions) I would not now lay down precise principles which should be followed in the future. They must be developed on a case by case basis and in each case all will depend upon the circumstances. I agree with Millett LJ’s general approach.

Fourthly, I would leave open the question how damages should be assessed. The traditional approach had been to assess the loss of value of the property caused by the nuisance. There may also be scope for an award of general damages: see eg, in the context of noise, Farley v Skinner[2002] 2 AC 732. Although the claim was in contract, Lord Steyn, who gave the leading speech, would have reached the same conclusion if the claim had been in nuisance: see para 30. It may however be that, in the light of the views expressed by Lord Hoffmann in Hunter v Canary Wharf [1997] 1 AC 655 at 706, such damages could only be awarded in nuisance as loss of the amenity value of the land. This could be in the form of general damages if it is not possible to prove a specific loss of value, rather as in Ruxley Electronics and Construction Ltd v Forsyth [1996] AC 244, which is referred to by Lord Hoffmann at page 706F.

Finally, I would leave open the question whether it may in some circumstances be appropriate to award what have been called gain-based damages in lieu of an injunction. I appreciate the possible problems identified by Lord Neuberger and Lord Carnwath but it does seem to me that, where a claimant is seeking an injunction to restrain the noise which has been held to amount to a nuisance, it is at least arguable that there is no reason in principle why a court considering whether or not to award damages in lieu of an injunction should not be able to award damages on a more generous basis than the diminution in value caused by the nuisance, including, for example, an award which represented a reasonable price for a licence to commit the nuisance. So, for example, as Lord Neuberger notes at para 111, in Jaggard v Sawyer [1995] 1 WLR 269 the Court of Appeal awarded damages for trespass in lieu of an injunction which in effect gave the defendant a right of way over the plaintiff’s land in return for a capital sum. If that can be done in trespass I do not at present see why it should not in principle be done in nuisance in a case like this, where a similar payment would give the respondents the right to commit what would otherwise be a nuisance by noise. Moreover, as Lord Neuberger observes at para 128, there may be scope for assessing the claimant’s loss by reference to the benefit to the defendant of not suffering an injunction. However, these are all matters for the future and I recognise that before reaching final conclusions it would be necessary to consider the relevant authorities and to receive appropriate submissions.

I agree with Lord Neuberger’s proposals as to the resolution of the appeal. In particular, as to the future, I agree with his paras 148 to 151, especially 150 and 151. Thus, while I naturally hope that issues of remedy can now be resolved by agreement, some of the questions raised by Lord Neuberger and the other judgments in this appeal may fall for decision in this very case.

The present appeal raises important issues relating to an area of the law which has received little attention at the highest level, that is “nuisance by interference with enjoyment” (as distinct from “nuisance by encroachment or damage”: see Clerk & Lindsell on Torts 20^th ed (2010), para 20-07, -09). Although many of the relevant principles are treated by the textbooks as long-settled, the authorities are generally in the Court of Appeal and below. Particular aspects of the law of nuisance, notably the rule in Rylands v Fletcher (1868) LR 3 HL 330, have received recent attention in the House of Lords (Cambridge Water Co v Eastern Counties Leather plc[1994] 2 AC 264 and Transco plc v Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council[2004] 2 AC 1), and some of the speeches have commented on more general principles. But for authoritative statements at the highest level on this area of the law one has to go back almost 150 years, to the landmark case of St Helen’s Smelting Co v Tipping (1865) 11 HL Cas 642, long before the advent of modern planning control.

Ben Pontin in his valuable recent book Nuisance Law and Environmental Protection (2013) shows how since the middle of the 19^th Century common law nuisance has played an important complementary role to regulatory controls, on the one hand stimulating industry to find better technical solutions to environmental problems, and, on the other, stimulating the legislature to fill gaps in the regulatory system. He sees the present appeal as an important opportunity for the Supreme Court to review the proper role of this part of the law of nuisance in the modern world (p 184).

Lord Neuberger has highlighted five particular issues raised by the appeal, in summary:

Prescriptive right

“Coming to the nuisance”

The defendant’s activity as part of the “character of the area”

Relevance of planning permission

Remedies

On the first two issues I agree respectfully with Lord Neuberger and have nothing to add. On the others, although I agree with his overall conclusions, I prefer to explain my reasoning in my own words.

It is important at the outset to identify the test to be applied in determining what amounts to a nuisance. In his introduction (para 5), Lord Neuberger quotes without comment a passage in Cambridge Water Company v Eastern Counties Leather plc [1994] 2 AC 264, 299, in which Lord Goff referred to the “controlling” principle of “reasonable user – the principle of give and take…”. As I explained in Barr v Biffa Waste Services Ltd [2013] QB 455, paras 60-72, Lord Goff was not seeking to lay down a general rule, and the concept is not without its problems. The criterion of “reasonableness” has also been strongly criticised by some academics. (See for example, Allan Beever The Law of Nuisance (2013) p 9ff: “it is presented as an explanation of the operation of the law, but it does not, cannot, explain anything”.) In Barr v Biffa Waste Services Ltd (para 72), I referred to Tony Weir’s qualification of the reasonableness test:

Another important question is the context in which the reasonableness test is to be applied. Traditionally the acceptability of the defendant’s activity is to be judged by reference to “the character of the locality”, a concept which dates back at least to Sturges v Bridgman (1879) 11 Ch D 852. At that time the mix of uses in an area would have been the result largely of unrestrained market forces, and the degree of regulatory control was very limited. Although the same principle has survived into the modern law, it is unrealistic to leave out of account the many factors which influence the character of an area in the modern world, including the impact of planning control. In Hunter v Canary Wharf Ltd [1997] AC 655, Lord Cooke (dissenting on this part of the case) highlighted these changes:

Against that background, in areas where conflicts may arise, the character of any locality may not conform to a single homogeneous identity, but rather may consist of a varied pattern of uses all of which need to coexist in a modern society. Due account also needs to be taken of the process by which the pattern of uses has developed. The impact of general planning control since 1948, which includes development plan allocations as well as decisions on individual planning applications, will have played a major part in ensuring, as Lord Hoffmann said, an appropriate balance between developers and the public.

However planning control is only part of the story. The pattern of uses will include, not only uses approved under modern planning permissions, but also other lawful uses – lawful either because they began before 1948, or because they have become established in law since then (such as stock car racing in this case). Potentially unneighbourly uses, even if not subject to specific planning permission, are likely to have been subject to other regulatory controls to ensure their acceptability within their particular environment. Other activities may have been encouraged to relocate, with or without threats of discontinuance orders, or financial incentives.

After more than 60 years of modern planning and environmental controls, it is not unreasonable to start from the presumption that the established pattern of uses generally represents society’s view of the appropriate balance of uses in a particular area, taking account both of the social needs of the area and of the maintenance of an acceptable environment for its occupants. The common law of nuisance is there to provide a residual control to ensure that new or intensified activities do not need lead to conditions which, within that pattern, go beyond what a normal person should be expected to put up with.

This analysis seems to me consistent with that of the Lord Westbury LC in St Helens case in the different circumstances of the Victorian world. In the passage quoted by Lord Neuberger (para 64), Lord Westbury spoke of the need for a person living in a town to subject himself to consequence of trade operations in his locality which are “necessary for trade and commerce… and for the benefit of the inhabitants of the town and of the public at large”: 11 HL Cas 642, 650. There is no reason why, in a modern context, the same analysis should not apply to activities other than trade which contribute to the ordinary life of a modern community, and which need to be accommodated within the urban fabric.

An example mentioned in argument was a major football stadium. Significant disturbance on match days may be regarded as a necessary price for an activity regarded as socially important, provided it is subject to proper controls by the public authorities, including the police, to ensure that the disturbance is contained as far as reasonably practicable. In those circumstances, if someone buys a house next to such a stadium, he should not be able to sue for nuisance, even though the noise may be highly disturbing to ordinary home life on those days. This is not because he came to the nuisance, nor (necessarily) because it has continued for 20 years. Rather it is because it is part of the established pattern of uses in the area, and society attaches importance to having places for professional football within urban areas. He can however sue if there is something about the organisation, or lack of it, which takes the disturbance beyond what is acceptable under the reasonableness test.

Nor is there any reason why this approach should be confined to urban areas. As the present case illustrates, similar patterns of potentially conflicting uses may arise in the country as much as in the town.

The above analysis seems to me to provide the answer to Lord Neuberger’s third issue, concerning the relevance of the actual use complained of by the claimant. An existing activity can in my view clearly be taken into account if it is part of the established pattern of use. That is clear from many of the reported cases which proceed on the basis that the defendant’s activity contributes to the character of the locality against which the new or intensified use is to be considered.

So in Rushmer v Polsue & Alfieri Ltd [1906] 1 Ch 234 (approved by the House of Lords [1907] AC 121)the Court of Appeal specifically rejected an argument that because the defendant’s activities conformed to the character of the area, there could not be a nuisance when a new more intrusive element was introduced. Similarly, in Halsey v Esso Petroleum [1961] 1 WLR 683, Veale J started from the position of the “ordinary man” -

In Kennaway v Thompson [1981] QB 88 it was common ground that the plaintiff could not complain of noise of motor boats at the levels accepted by her as tolerable when she built her house (p 94B). The terms of the injunction were designed to protect the defendant’s activities at that level, with a limited number of days for noisier boats (p 94F-95A). Similarly in Watson v Croft Promosport Ltd[2009] 3 All ER 249 the injunction, even as modified by the Court of Appeal, did not stop the defendant’s activity altogether, but sought to define the level of acceptable use, by limiting numbers of days and defining noise limits (paras 53-54).

In none of these cases did the court find it necessary to undertake an “iterative process” as proposed by Lord Neuberger (para 72). The judges proceeded on the basis that a change in the intensity or character of an existing activity may result in a nuisance, no less than the introduction of a new activity. It was a matter for the judge, as an issue of fact and degree, to establish the limits of the acceptable, and if appropriate to make an order by reference to the limits so defined.

The most difficult problem raised by the present appeal, in my view, is the fourth of Lord Neuberger’s issues, that is the relevance of the planning history of the defendant’s activity.

Modern planning legislation dates from the coming into force in 1948 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1947. More limited regulatory controls of activities on land had existed since around the mid-19th century, but until the 1947 Act there was no attempt to provide a comprehensive system for the allocation of land use and development. Decisions made by local planning authorities and planning inspectors reflect, or should reflect, an attempt by the authorities consciously to balance the likely benefits of a proposed development against any potential adverse consequences. That process often involves consideration of the interests of neighbouring property owners, including the impact of noise. Thus, national planning advice encourages planning authorities to restrict new development which could give rise to significant adverse impacts from noise; but emphasises that planning is concerned with the acceptability of the use in principle, rather than control of processes or emissions which are subject to other regulatory controls (National Planning Policy Framework (2012), paras 122-123).

The law of private nuisance, of far greater antiquity than modern planning legislation, also fulfils the function of protecting the interests of property owners. There is, however, a fundamental difference between planning law and the law of nuisance. The former exists to protect and promote the public interest, whereas the latter protects the rights of particular individuals. Planning decisions may require individuals to bear burdens for the benefit of others, the local community or the public as a whole. But, as the law stands, it is generally no defence to a claim of nuisance that the activity in question is of benefit to the public.

Thus planning controls and the law of nuisance may pull in opposite directions. A development executed in accordance with planning permission may nevertheless cause a substantial interference with the enjoyment of neighbouring properties. Should a property owner be able in effect to undermine the planning process by bringing a claim of nuisance against the developer and securing not only damages but also an injunction prohibiting the activity in question, regardless of its public significance?

This is not a problem which arises if the project is authorized by statute. In the 19th century, long before modern planning control, railways were built under private acts which not only conferred the necessary powers to acquire or interfere with private property interests, but also conferred effective immunity from actions for nuisance. The same principle has provided protection for more modern activities, such as oil refineries. But, as Lord Wilberforce explained in Allen v Gulf Oil Refining Ltd [1981] AC 1001 the defence applies only where Parliament has “by express direction or by necessary implication” authorised the activity in question and the alleged nuisance is the inevitable consequence of that activity (pp 1011F, 1013F).

The Planning Act 2008 has adopted the same solution for nationally significant infrastructure projects, such as airports and power stations. The Act is designed to provide a more efficient method for securing planning and other approvals necessary for such projects, within the context of a policy framework approved by Parliament. Section 158 of the 2008 Act provides statutory immunity from liability for private or public nuisance for activities authorised by an order granting development consent under the Act, subject to any contrary provision contained in the order. By section 152 compensation is payable to any person whose land is injuriously affected by the carrying out of the works (within the relatively narrow limits defined by section 10 of the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965 and Part I of the Land Compensation Act 1973: section 152(5)(7)). There is no equivalent statutory protection for other forms of development authorised under ordinary planning procedures, whether by the local planning authority or the Secretary of State following a public inquiry.

In Barr v Biffa Waste Services Ltd[2013] QB 455, para 46, a case relating to waste disposal under an environmental licence, in a passage quoted by Lord Neuberger (para 91), I pointed out that the common law of nuisance had co-existed with statutory controls since the 19^th century without the latter being treated as a reason for cutting down private law rights. However, the context is important. I was speaking about environmental regulation rather than planning control, which was not in issue.

Further, while my statement was an accurate reflection of the historical position, it is open to the criticism that as a blueprint for the future development of the law it was unduly simplistic. In a perceptive article on the decisions of the Court of Appeal in the present case and in Barr v Biffa Waste Services Ltd, Maria Lee concludes:

The issue has attracted particular attention over the last 20 years, since the judgment of Buckley J in the Gillingham Docks case (Gillingham Borough Council v Medway (Chatham) Dock Co Ltd [1993] QB 343). That has been considered by the Court of Appeal in two cases before the present judgment (Wheeler v JJ Saunders Ltd [1996] Ch 19 and Watson v Croft Promosport[2009] 3 All ER 249) and once in the House of Lords (Hunter v Canary Wharf Ltd[1997] AC 655).

The facts of the Gillingham Docks case were unusual. The council as local planning authority had granted planning permission to the defendant to develop part of the historic Chatham Royal Naval Dockyard as a commercial port. It had been clear to both the council and local residents at the time that the port would be operated on a 24-hour basis, and that the only access to the port for vehicles would be via two residential roads. In spite of strong objections by local residents the council decided that the promised economic benefits outweighed the inevitable disturbance of local residents.

Several years later, the priorities of the council changed and they brought an action in public nuisance seeking to restrain the use of the residential roads by heavy goods vehicles at night. Modifying the planning permission to achieve the same effect would have involved the payment of compensation. The judge rejected the claim. Although he accepted that the principle of statutory immunity had no direct application, he attached weight to the fact that Parliament had delegated to the local planning authority the task of balancing the likely pros and cons of a proposed development, under a procedure which enabled local residents to object. He said:

The grant of planning permission for the dock had authorised a change to the character of the neighbourhood, against which the reasonableness of the use was to be judged. The dock company was not operating the port other than as a normal commercial undertaking, and it could not operate a commercial port without disturbing nearby residents. It would not, he thought, be realistic to attempt to limit the amount of trade at the port:

There was an alternative public law challenge based on the unreasonableness of the council’s action in bringing public nuisance proceedings in respect of a project which it had itself authorised on public interest grounds, and where there was available the alternative of modification of the permission or discontinuance accompanied by compensation (see pp 350-351). The judge found it unnecessary to consider how those arguments would have been resolved in judicial review proceedings. However, he indicated that, even if he had held otherwise on liability, he would have refused an injunction as matter of discretion, having regard to the history and the damage to the dock undertaking, leaving it to the authority to resolve the “planning problem” using its statutory powers (p 364A-C).

That judgment was considered by the Court of Appeal, some three years later, in Wheeler v JJ Saunders Ltd [1996] Ch 19. Again the facts were unusual. Dr Wheeler was a veterinary surgeon specialising in pigs. He had earlier been involved in the management of a pig farm operated by the defendant company close to his home. But the relationship broke down and the business was subsequently conducted without his involvement. In 1988 and 1989, the company obtained planning permission to construct two new buildings to house their pigs (some 800 in total), one of which was only 11 metres from a holiday cottage owned by Dr Wheeler and his wife. Government guidelines recommended a normal separation distance of at least 100 metres from the nearest dwelling house.

Dr Wheeler and his wife succeeded in their action for damages and an injunction restraining the use of the new pig sheds, notwithstanding that they had been erected and used in accordance with planning permission. Staughton LJ noted that the company had given the council the misleading impression that the planning applications were merely to continue an activity which had been tolerated in the past, and that nothing much would change as regards the number of pigs on the farm or the conditions in which they were to be kept. Also, the local planning authority had failed to consult the council’s environmental health department. Peter Gibson LJ described the grant as “incomprehensible” (p 36).

It was held that the reasoning in Gillingham Docks had no application to the facts of this case. The planning permission had not changed the character of the neighbourhood, which remained a pig farm but with an intensified use of part of it. In the words of Staughton LJ, the planning permission was not “a strategic planning decision affected by considerations of public interest” (p 30). Peter Gibson LJ said:

In the meantime, the Gillingham Docks case had been considered by the House of Lords in Hunter v Canary Wharf [1997] AC 655. The case involved a claim for nuisance, brought by local residents in relation to interference with television signals due to the construction of a tower as part of the Canary Wharf development. The development had been carried out under planning permission granted under a special procedure by the London Docklands Development Corporation. There was no appeal from the Court of Appeal’s decision that the grant of planning permission could not itself provide immunity from liability for nuisance. In the House of Lords, Lord Cooke of Thorndon, who alone thought that there could be liability in principle, endorsed the Gillingham Docks judgment as directly relevant to the circumstances of Canary Wharf. He contrasted Wheeler in which there had been “an injudicious grant of planning consent, procured apparently by the supply of inaccurate and incomplete information” (p 722). By contrast, the Canary Wharf Tower had been built in an enterprise zone in an urban development area and authorised under the special procedure designed to encourage regeneration:

Of the Gillingham Docks case itself he said:

More recently, the issue arose again, in circumstances much closer to those of the present case, in Watson v Croft Promosport Ltd(2009) 3 All ER 249. A World War II aerodrome had been turned into a motor racing circuit, pursuant to planning permission granted in 1963 after a public inquiry. Although there were no planning restrictions on the levels of activities, its use was relatively limited until 1994 (there were no more than 10 meetings a year between 1982 and 1994), and appears to have caused little disturbance to local residents. In that year, after the circuit had changed ownership, an application was made for more extensive use, involving 37 race days, 24 exclusive test days and 120 days when the track would be used for other purposes. Permission was granted by the local authority in July 1995.

In 1998, following a period of disputes with local residents, and an adjourned planning inquiry, the owner made a further application for planning permission on the basis that he was prepared to enter into an enforceable planning obligation under section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to set limits to the amount of noise from racing on the circuit. The proposed agreement contained a detailed set of measurement criteria by which noise from the circuit would be assessed and monitored, and prescribed the racing activities which could be undertaken, and when quiet and rest days were to be held. The activities were divided into N1 to N5 activities, according to the noise levels which were generated.

Permission was granted by the inspector on this basis. He accepted that “the Development Plan policies weigh heavily against the project” and that the noise had at times “been of such character, duration and intensity and tone as to seriously harm the amenity to which residents reasonably feel they are entitled”; but that had to be weighed against the existing planning permission which allowed uncontrolled use of the circuit. Bearing in mind “the very wide planning use rights which the site now enjoys”, he considered that the agreement would strengthen significantly the ability of the local planning authority to control noise at the circuit.

Local residents brought an action claiming that, even within the constraints set by the agreement, the activities constituted a nuisance. Simon J [2008] EWHC 759 (QB) noted that their objections were not to the car and motor-bicycle racing fixtures, amounting to about 20 (N1 and N2) events each year (over approximately 45-50 days), but to the noise from other activities, in particular Vehicle Testing Days and Track Days (when members of the public drive vehicles at speed all day) at noise levels which reach N2-N4 levels. He held that the character of the locality had been “essentially rural”, and that the circuit “could be, and was, run in a way that was consistent with its essentially rural nature” (para 55). He declined to accept the 1998 planning permission as an indication (in Lord Hoffmann’s terms) of the appropriate balance between developer and public, since the limits had in effect been dictated by the owners (paras 55-56). He held that there was an actionable nuisance.

The claimants had argued that the N1-N4 noise from the circuit should be confined to 20 days, as representing the “the threshold of the nuisance”, and that 40 days would be acceptable only upon the payment of compensation for the difference between 20-40 days. This, they submitted, would accommodate “the core” activities of the circuit. The judge regarded the proposed threshold as too low. Striking “a proper balance between the respective legitimate interests of the parties, in the light of the past and present circumstances”, he held that the threshold should be set at 40 N1-N4 days.

However he declined to grant an injunction, awarding damages instead (based on the diminution in value of the claimant’s properties). He took account of the delay in bringing the proceedings, and the claimant’s willingness to accept damages for at least part of the nuisance. He also took account of his perception of the social value of the activity, and the limited number of sites on which it could take place (paras 87-88).

The finding of nuisance was upheld by the Court of Appeal. The court accepted that the implementation (not the mere grant) of planning permission might so alter the character of a neighbourhood as to render innocent an activity which would otherwise have been a nuisance (paras 32-3). Whether it did so was a question of fact and degree. In this case the planning permissions had not changed the character of the local neighbourhood, which remained essentially rural, nor could they be regarded as “strategic” (para 34).

Further, the Court of Appeal held that the judge had been wrong to refuse an injunction. Applying the principles established in Shelfer v City of London Electric Lighting Co[1895] 1 Ch 287, the circumstances of the case were held not to be sufficiently exceptional to justify the refusal of an injunction. The court accepted that, in a marginal case where the damage to the claimant is minimal, the social value of the activity in question could be taken into account consistently with Shelfer. However, the existence of a public benefit could not alone negate the requirement of exceptional circumstances or oppression of the defendant (para 51).

I have reviewed these cases is some detail, because they illustrate the wide variety of circumstances in which planning decisions may be made, and the danger of laying down any general propositions about their relevance to the application of the reasonableness test in any particular case.

They suggest that a planning permission may be relevant in two distinct ways:

It may provide evidence of the relative importance, in so far as it is relevant, of the permitted activity as part of the pattern of uses in the area;

Where a relevant planning permission (or a related section 106 agreement) includes a detailed, and carefully considered, framework of conditions governing the acceptable limits of a noise use, they may provide a useful starting point or benchmark for the court’s consideration of the same issues.

Before considering those alternatives, I should note my respectful disagreement with Lord Neuberger’s reservations (para 98) about the potential utility of planning officer’s reports as evidence of the reasoning of the planning authority itself. Judged by my own experience in practice and on the bench over some 40 years, I have found that a planning officer’s report, at least in cases where the officer’s recommendation is followed, is likely to be a very good indication of the council’s consideration of the matter, particularly on such issues as public interest and the effect on the local environment. The fact that not all the members will have shared the same views on all the issues does not detract from the utility of the report as an indication of the general thrust of the council’s thinking. That is illustrated by some of the planning reports in this case (as Lord Neuberger implicitly recognises, when relying on the “cautious” nature of the planning officer’s recommendations – para 138). In any event, in so far as the focus is on the evidence before the planning authority (to which Lord Neuberger refers in para 138), rather than the decision itself, the planning officer’s report is likely to offer the most comprehensive summary of the relevant material.

The first alternative begs the question whether the relative importance of an activity to the public is relevant at all. In Miller v Jackson[1977] QB 966 the Court of Appeal held by a majority that public benefit was not relevant to liability, but (by a different majority) that it may be relevant to remedies. In Kennaway v Thompson [1981] QB 88 the court declined to follow the latter view, holding that public benefit was not relevant at either stage.

Clerk & Lindsell para 20-107 notes the position as apparently established by those cases, but adds that since a finding of nuisance “necessarily involves the balancing of competing interests”, public interest, while not itself a defence, should be “a factor in assessing reasonableness of user”. The only case cited Dennis v Ministry of Defence [2003] Env LR 741 (noise from military aircraft) does not directly support the proposition, since Buckley J held there to be a nuisance, but awarded damages in lieu of a declaration or injunction because of the public interest in the activity (paras 48, 80).

In agreement with Peter Gibson LJ in Wheeler [1996] Ch 19, 35,I think there should be a strong presumption against allowing private rights to be overridden by administrative decisions without compensation. The public interest comes into play in the limited sense accepted by Lord Westbury 11 HL Cas 642, 650, as discussed above, that is in evaluating the pattern of uses “necessary… for the benefit of the inhabitants of the town and of the public at large”, against which the acceptability of the defendant’s activity is to be judged. Otherwise its relevance generally in my view should be in the context of remedies rather than liability.

I would accept however that in exceptional cases a planning permission may be the result of a considered policy decision by the competent authority leading to a fundamental change in the pattern of uses, which cannot sensibly be ignored in assessing the character of the area against which the acceptability of the defendant’s activity is to be judged. I read Staughton LJ’s use of the word “strategic” as equivalent to Peter Gibson LJ’s reference to “a major development altering the character of a neighbourhood with wide consequential effects such as required a balancing of competing public and private interests before permission was granted”. For this reason, in my view (differing respectfully from Lord Neuberger on this point) the reasoning of the judge in Gillingham Docks can be supported. Similarly, the Canary Wharf development was understandably regarded by Lord Cooke as strategic in the same sense. But those projects were exceptional both in scale and the nature of the planning judgements which led to their approval. By contrast, in neither Wheeler v Saunders and nor Watson v Croft Promosport Ltd did the relevant permissions result in a significant change in the pattern of uses in the area, let alone one which could be regarded as strategic; and for the reasons noted above neither decision could be regarded as reflecting a considered assessment by the authorities concerned of the appropriate balance between public and private interests.

Apart from such strategic cases, a planning permission may also be of some practical utility in a different way. As many of the cases show, a major problem when dealing with nuisance by noise is to establish any objective and verifiable criteria by which to judge either the existence of a nuisance or the limits of any injunction. In some cases there may have been a single planning permission which established, by condition or by a linked section 106 agreement, a framework of noise levels and time limits, which can be taken as representing the authority’s view, with the benefit of its expert advisers, of the acceptable limits. Lord Neuberger makes a similar point in paragraph 96.

Watson v Croft PromosportLtd offers one example of such a framework, in the form of a unilateral undertaking incorporating a relatively sophisticated set of noise criteria. As has been seen, that did not purport to be an assessment of what was seen by the planning inspector as objectively reasonable, but rather an attempt to control the uncontrolled. However, some of the noise criteria found in the agreement were used by the judge in setting the threshold of the acceptable, and by the Court of Appeal in framing the limits of their injunction.

Where the evidence shows that a set of conditions has been carefully designed to represent the authority’s view of a fair balance, there may be much to be said for the parties and their experts adopting that as a starting-point for their own consideration. It is not binding on the judge, of course, but it may help to bring some order to the debate. However, if the defendant seeks to rely on compliance with such criteria as evidence of the reasonableness of his operation, I would put the onus on him to show compliance (see by analogy Manchester CorpnvFarnworth[1930] AC 171, relating to the onus on the defendant to prove reasonable diligence under a private Act). By contrast, evidence of failure to comply with such conditions, while not determinative, may reinforce the case for a finding of nuisance under the reasonableness test.

The present case is illustrative of the opposite case, where the conditions of the planning permissions, such as they were, were of little help to the judge. It is perhaps unfortunate that the authority did not at some stage attempt to secure an overall agreement relating to the operation of activities on the combined sites. The permission for the stadium contained no noise-limits, other than some limits on days and hours of use. Three breach of condition notices served by the planning authority between 2007 and 2009 related to apparently isolated breaches of those limits. The established use certificate contained some limitation of hours, but it is unclear how if at all they could be enforced. In relation to the noise limit of 85dB LAeq over one hour at the boundary of the site, set by the 1997 permission for the motocross site, the most recent evidence we were shown of compliance was in a planning report of December 2001.

With the help of its own expert advice, the council did attempt in 2008 to impose some overall control by use of their statutory nuisance powers ([2011] EWHC 360 (QB), paras 115-117). That may be an uncertain guide in the context of the common law, given the statutory defence of “best practicable means”. (Thus, as Lord Neuberger says, the 1995 noise abatement proceedings had been “inconclusive”, not because of their result which was in favour of the owners, but because it was not possible to say whether the justices held that there was no nuisance, or merely that the owners were using best practicable means.) In any event, although the authority’s expert’s report was available, he was not called as a witness, his approach was strongly criticised by the claimant’s expert, and the judge was unimpressed by the council officer’s evidence that the abatement works had solved the problem (para 207).

In those circumstances, the judge was entitled to regard the conditions in the planning permissions and the terms of the abatement notices as of very little assistance in establishing the appropriate noise limits of the defendant’s activity.

Against that background, I turn to the reasoning of Jackson LJ in the present case. Dealing with what he called “the planning permission issue”, he reviewed the sequence of cases since Gillingham Docks and summarised their effect in the following propositions:

He held that the appeal should be allowed. I should quote the relevant passage in full (paras 71-75):

It will be apparent from my discussion of the Gillingham Docks case that I regard that case as of no relevance to the present. It has not been argued that the change resulting from the various permissions was “strategic”, and the Court of Appeal rightly did not so find. That, however, did not detract from the relevance of the permitted or established uses as part of the established pattern of uses in the area. The Court of Appeal were right to regard them as matters to be taken into account in judging the acceptability of the current use.

However, like Lord Neuberger, and in respectful disagreement with the Court of Appeal, I do not consider that the judge’s essential reasoning is open to challenge on this basis. Admittedly, as Lord Neuberger has pointed out (paras 77-79), the judge’s reasons for discounting the particular permissions (his para 66) seem unconvincing. However, he was entitled in my view on the facts of this case to approach the matter on the basis (his para 67) that it was more relevant to look, not so much at the permissions as such, as at their practical effects on the locality. This led to his conclusion (para 95) that the activities at the stadium and track were part of the character of the area, but only intermittently, and even then not necessarily involving a noise amounting to a nuisance. I find that conclusion hard to criticise.

Furthermore, para 158, on which the Court of Appeal relied, seems to me to have been taken by them out of context (albeit apparently with the acquiescence of counsel then appearing for the claimant). As I read it, the second part of para 158 was not raising an issue of law as to the relevance of the defendant's existing activities. The judge had already made clear his view on that issue in dealing with the character of the area (see above).

Rather para 158, though perhaps not very clearly expressed, was his introduction to the discussion of the respective expert views on the appropriate methods of assessment of noise. It would serve no purpose in this judgment to review the noise evidence in any detail, particularly as the judge’s task was complicated by the failure of the experts to agree a common methodology. However, it is clear that there was a significant difference of approach. The defendants’ expert favoured comparison with what he called "fixed benchmark values", which he saw as appropriate for a situation where "the noise from the stadium and motocross track are part of the background noise level of the area" (see especially judgment paras 164, 188). By contrast, the claimant’s expert favoured comparison with the background noise levels in the absence of the relevant noise source, noting differences on occasion of at least 10dBA over those levels. The judge preferred the latter approach, because it was those "dramatic" differences which constituted the real nuisance (para 203, 243).

The judge's treatment of the noise evidence cannot in my view be equated (as the Court of Appeal seemed to think) with "leaving out of account" the noise from the existing activities. It simply reflected his reasonable assessment, preferring on this point the expert evidence for the claimant, that the impact of the extreme events which were the real cause of the nuisance was not mitigated by the more acceptable noise levels experienced on other days or at other times. This was not a conclusion of law, but one of factual judgement properly based on the evidence before him.

Finally, while I agree with Jackson LJ as to the potential relevance of evidence of a substantial failure to comply with planning conditions, there was nothing in the evidence in this case which should have led to any assumption in that respect in favour of the defendant. Regardless of any specific enforcement action by the authority, it was for the defendant, if he wished to rely on any planning conditions, to prove not only compliance with them but also their significance to the judge’s assessment of nuisance. On the facts of this case, as I have said, the judge was entitled to give very little weight to that factor.

On the way the case has been argued in the lower courts, the final issue addressed by Lord Neuberger does not strictly arise. As the judge recorded, it was accepted that if a nuisance was established an injunction should follow, the only issue being its terms. The defendants have sought to open the issue in this court for the first time, on the basis that in the lower courts having regard to the authorities such an argument would have been doomed to failure. However, the result is that we have no relevant findings, either as to how the judge would have exercised his discretion if he been able to do so, or as to how he would have assessed future damages, had he decided on that course. In those circumstances, we should approach the issue with caution, conscious that anything we say can be no more than guidance.

With that caveat, I agree with Lord Neuberger and the rest of the court that the opportunity should be taken to signal a move away from the strict criteria derived from Shelfer [1895] 1 Ch 287. This is particularly relevant to cases where an injunction would have serious consequences for third parties, such as employees of the defendant’s business, or, in this case, members of the public using or enjoying the stadium. In that respect, in my view, the Court of Appeal in Watson [2009] 3 All ER 249 was wrong to hold that the judge had no power to make the order he did, and to limit public interest considerations to cases where the damage to the claimant is “minimal”.

As has been seen, Peter Gibson LJ in Wheeler [1996] Ch 19 saw more flexible remedial principles as a possible answer to the public interest aspect of cases such as Gillingham Docks, rather than creating an exception to the law of nuisance. Commenting on the restrictive view taken by the Court of Appeal in Watson, Maria Lee has said:

The practice of other common law countries has varied. For example, the Australian courts have generally followed the Shelfer principles (see eg Munroe v Southern Dairies[1955] VLR 332. So also in New Zealand: see Bank of New Zealand v Greenwood [1984] 1 NZLR 525, where Hardie Boys J said (p 535):

In Canada by contrast the Supreme Court has allowed a more flexible approach. Thus in Canada Paper Co v Brown(1922) 63 SCR 243 the court adopted Shelfer principles, but Duff J added:

A more flexible approach has also been adopted in the United States. A leading case is Boomer v Atlantic Cement Company(1970) 26 NY 2d 219, in the New York Court of Appeal. The case has been described as “a staple of the [US] law school curriculum and a constant preoccupation of [US] legal scholars” (Farber, D.A. The Story of Boomer – Pollution and the Common Law (2005) 32 Ecology LQ 113). A nuisance had been caused to local residents by the operation of a cement factory but the court refused to grant an injunction requiring the closure of the plant, taking account of the facts that it had cost $45 m to construct and employed more than 300 local people. As Justice Bergan said at p 223, the total damage to the plaintiffs' properties was “relatively small in comparison with the value of defendant's operation and with the consequences of the injunction which plaintiffs seek”. The court accordingly permitted the defendant company to continue operating the factory on payment of damages in lieu of an injunction, to be assessed by the lower court.

Further support for a more flexible approach can be found in a number of academic writings, most recently by Mark Wilde in Nuisance Law and Damages in Lieu of an Injunction: Challenging the Orthodoxy of the Shelfer Criteria (in Tort Law: Challenging Orthodoxy ed Stephen Pitel and others (2013) cap 12).

While therefore I agree generally with the observations of Lord Neuberger and Lord Sumption on this aspect, I have three particular reservations.

First, I would not regard the grant of planning permission for a particular use as in itself giving rise to a presumption against the grant of an injunction. As I have said, the circumstances in which permissions may be granted differ so much as to make it unwise to lay down any general propositions. I would accept however that the nature of, and background to, a relevant planning permission may be an important factor in the court’s assessment.

Secondly, I would be cautious of too direct a comparison with cases relating to rights of light, particularly where (as in Kine v Jolly [1905] 1 Ch 480) the court was asked to make a mandatory injunction to demolish a house built in good faith (see also Wilde op cit p 372, citing Sargant LJ in Slack v Leeds Industrial Co-operative Society[1924] 2 Ch 475, 496). Cases such as the present are not concerned with such drastic alternatives. The judge is not asked to bring the defendant’s activity to an end altogether, but to set reasonable limits for its continuation. In so doing he should take into account not only the claimant’s environment but also the viability of the defendant’s business. In some cases it may be appropriate to combine an injunction with an award of damages (as happened at first instance in Watson v Croft Promosport). I also agree with Lord Mance that special importance should attach to the right to enjoy one’s home without disturbance, independently of financial considerations.

Thirdly, without much fuller argument than we have heard, I would be reluctant to open up the possibility of assessment of damages on the basis of a share of the benefit to the defendants. The issues are complex on any view (for a detailed academic discussion of the recent authorities, see Craig Rotherham “Gain-based relief in tort after A-G v Blake”(2010) 126 LQR 102). Jaggard v Sawyer [1995] 1 WLR 269, to which Lord Neuberger refers, gives Court of Appeal support for an award on that basis for trespass or breach of a restrictive covenant, but the same approach has not hitherto been extended to interference with rights of light (see Forsyth-Grant v Allen [2008] Env LR 877). In cases relating to clearly defined interference with a specific property right, it is not difficult to envisage a hypothetical negotiation to establish an appropriate “price”. The same approach cannot in my view be readily transferred to claims for nuisance such as the present relating to interference with the enjoyment of land, where the injury is less specific, and the appropriate price much less easy to assess, particularly in a case where the nuisance affects a large number of people. Further, such an approach seems to represent a radical departure from the normal basis regarded by Parliament as fair and appropriate in relation to injurious affection arising from activities carried out under statutory authority.

For all these reasons, I agree with the disposal of the appeal proposed by Lord Neuberger.