The Court of Appeal has discarded Ardagh Glass“ claim that the Council of Chester West and Cheshire had no power to grant Quinn Glass“ Elton plant retrospective planning permission.
The decision co…
The Court of Appeal has discarded Ardagh Glass“ claim that the Council of Chester West and Cheshire had no power to grant Quinn Glass“ Elton plant retrospective planning permission. The decision comes after the Secretary of State gave Quinn retrospective planning approval in November 2009, with the local authority approving its application the previous month. Ardagh raised issues about the validity of the Environmental Impact Assessment, which was carried out after the plant was built, in 2009, claiming that it was not valid because it should have been done prior to building the plant and could therefore not be used to grant planning permission. Robert McCracken QC, on behalf of Ardagh, said that European law prevented a grant of retrospective planning permission for developments requiring environmental impact assessment, adding that when development had been carried out without compliance with the European EIA Directive the only course was to knock down the development and start again. Lord Justice Sullivan, on giving judgement, said the argument was an affront to common sense. According to a statement from Quinn Glass, the Presiding Judge, Lord Justice Jacob added that the suggestion that it would be always necessary to undo a development whatever anyone thought of it was so absurd that it could not be European Community Law. Quinn Glass director Adrian Curry said: The Court of Appeal reinforced what we always believed. The legal costs over the years are not insignificant but from our point of view we had to see it through as we had spent GBP 325 million on the plant and we have 700 employees. Going forward, we still have some spare capacity at the Elton plant, which we hope to use for the producing and filling process. Ardagh Glass declined to comment.