Appeals on site quash TC's action
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The Transport Tribunal has quashed the South Eastern and Metropolitan Traffic Commissioner's decision granting Norman Marshall an additional operating centre at Horsham, West Sussex.
West Sussex County Council and Horsham District Council had appealed against approval of plans to base 19 vehicles at Nowhurst Quarry, Nowhurst Lane, Broadbridge Heath.
The Commissioner, Brigadier Michael Turner, had considered the use of Nowhurst Lane to gain access to the site to be dangerous. But he felt precluded from taking that into account because the Transport Tribunal had earlier ruled in the Scorpio International appeal that such con siderations applied only until the access to the operating centre met the public road.
But for that Turner said he would have refused the application because he did not consider that Nowhurst Lane was suitable or safe for heavy vehicles.
He also considered that a Certificate of Lawful Use for a civil engineering depot, including the parking, storage and maintenance of vehicles, precluded him from refusing the application on environmental grounds. For those reasons, he concluded that he was forced to grant the application.
The Tribunal said that, though Nowhurst Lane was a public road for the purposes of the act, it was accepted that it was a bridieway rather than a carriageway on which the public could drive. It con sidered that the carriageway In the Scorpio International case had been readily distinguishable as a public road.
The Tribunal agreed with the argument that a Certificate of Lawful Use was only valid if it stated that the use of the site concerned as an operating centre for vehicles under any 0-licence was or would be lawful. it was common ground that the certificate in the present case had been obtained for a differed purpose. The Tribunal did not consider that that certificate precluded the consideration of environmental grounds by the Commissioner. The Commissioner's findings of fact in relation to Nowhurst Lane and that the site was not suitable for use as an operating centre in environmental terms had not been disputed, and the appeals were allowed.