The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Woman earns stripes after High Court battle
Planning: Council sees red (and white) over painted house
A woman who decorated her multimillion-pound townhouse with red and white stripes has won a High Court battle over a planning authority’s order to repaint the property.
Property developer Zipporah Lisle-Mainwaring painted candy stripes on the facade of the threestorey terraced building in South End, Kensington, London, in March 2015.
She has denied the paint job was done to spite neighbours who objected to her plans to demolish the property and replace it with a new home.
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea served her with a notice under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, setting out steps required to be taken within 28 days, including “repainting all external paintwork located on the front elevation white”.
It said the notice was being served “because it appears to the council that the amenity of a part of their area is adversely affected by the condition of the land”.
The notice stated: “The condition and appearance of the property, particularly the red and white painted stripes on the front elevation, is incongruous with the streetscape of South End and the local area.”
After failed appeals to magistrates and Isleworth Crown Court last year over the requirement to repaint the property, Ms LisleMainwaring launched judicial review action at the High Court in London.
A judge ruled in her favour yesterday and quashed the notice.
One issue was whether a notice served under section 215 of the 1990 Act “may be used when the complaint is that the planning authority considers that the choice of painting scheme harms amenity”.
An owner or occupier of land who fails to take steps required in such a notice within a specified period “shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine.”
Mr Justice Gilbart, who said the painting of the house had been “entirely lawful”, asked: “Is it proper to use a section 215 notice where the complaint is not lack of maintenance or repair, but of aesthetics?”
He ruled: “In my judgment, to allow a local planning authority to use section 215 to deal with questions of aesthetics, as opposed to disrepair or dilapidation, falls outside the intention and spirit of the planning code.”
“It falls outside the intention and spirit of the planning code”