[2025] UKUT 312 (LC)

The Appeal Site was a small part of a much larger site earmarked by the Council for redevelopment following the demolition of Masshouse Circus and the elevated section of Moor Street Queensway in 2002. Outline planning permission for mixed use development was granted on a 2002 application by the Council for six plots in the area, two of which covered the Appeal Site. That permission contemplated more than 48,000 sqm of new development on the Appeal Site itself, in buildings of between three and eight storeys, including more than 300 housing units and significant office accommodation. It was not implemented in relation to the Appeal Site and had lapsed by the valuation date.

Planning permission was next granted in November 2007 for development of the Appeal Site together with other land to the north (now the site of the Clayton Hotel). That permission, granted in outline, was for a major mixed-use development of up to 93,700 sqm including the hotel, shops, financial and professional services, restaurants and cafes, hot food takeaways, a foodstore, offices, residential and associated car parking, landscaping, highways and infrastructure (“the 2007 Permission”). The decision notice provided that any application for approval of reserved matters should be made within ten years and development must be begun within a year of final approval of reserved matters.

The 2007 Permission was subsequently amended in April 2008 following a section 73 application to allow additional flexibility in the choice of uses, with no requirement for a minimum allocation to any particular use other than retail, but with a mix of uses secured by specifying a use or uses for particular buildings on a parameters plan.

An application for reserved matters approval was granted in October 2008 to permit the erection of 23,074 sqm of offices in two eight storey buildings at the southern end of the Appeal Site, overlooking Moor Street Station. These were never built, but it is agreed that the 2008 reserved matters approval was extant and capable of implementation at the valuation date. The remainder of the 2007 Permission had lapsed. The ability to erect two office buildings on the scale of the extant permission is agreed to be a material consideration when determining what development is likely to have been permitted at the Appeal Site at the valuation date.

A number of planning permissions for development on sites 2, 3 and 4 are also relevant.

An outline planning permission granted in January 2009 was extant for a development at New Canal Street (part of site 2). It envisaged a 55,000 sqm university campus including a concert hall and theatre, retail, parking, landscaping and associated works on land belonging to Birmingham City University. Reserved matters approval for the first phase of this development was obtained in March 2010 but did not progress. With the advent of the HS2 scheme the University found a site elsewhere in Eastside for its campus.

In June 2008 Curzon Park Limited had obtained outline planning permission for development on site 3 of up to 130,000 sqm comprising offices, residential, a hotel, retail, a medical centre and leisure uses. Certain uses were optional while others, specifically office and residential, were governed by minimum and maximum floor space conditions.

Together with adjoining land which was not acquired by the Secretary of State the Curzon Gateway site belonging to the Eastside Partnership (site 4) had the benefit of a full planning permission granted in February 2007 for a canal-side development of 260 dwellings and 748 student bed spaces with ancillary uses. By the valuation date construction of PBSA on the adjoining land was complete and operational.