Council wins Planning Court battle over former home of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

A High Court judge has dismissed a judicial review challenge to a council’s grant of planning permission for a change of use to the house where Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Waverley Borough Council had granted permission and listed building consent for the change of Undershaw – a Grade 2 listed building in Hindhead – from a hotel to a school on 31 March 2015. The property had last been a hotel in 2005 and has lain dormant since.

The grant of planning permission allows for the expansion of Stepping Stones School, an educational establishment for children and young adults with special needs.

The claimant, John Gibson of the Undershaw Preservation Trust, won permission to apply for judicial review from Mr Justice Singh in August 2015.

However, in Gibson, R (On the Application Of) v Waverley Borough Council [2015] EWHC 3784 (Admin) Mr Justice Foskett rejected the claim on all grounds.

The judge concluded – amongst other things – that the council had been entitled to proceed on the basis that the proposal reflected in the new application was not merely the only viable educational use of Undershaw, but on the evidence available it was the only viable use of the property that would preserve it from further deterioration.

“It may not, as the Officers' Report observed…., have been the optimum use for the property, but it had the merit of preserving it from further dilapidation.”

Mr Justice Foskett said he did not consider that there was any substance in the argument that the defendant council had failed adequately to consider other viable uses, although the officers drew attention to the inadequate marketing for its existing use. “There was a history of consideration of other uses, none of which had ever been achieved or realised in practice.”

The judge went on to say that the planning committee “plainly saw strong grounds for accepting the proposal because it provided much-needed educational and training facilities for part of the disabled community at the same time as (a) preserving and protecting an important heritage asset from continuing dilapidation and (b) enabling public access to it at appropriate times”.

That was pre-eminently a matter of judgment for the council, he added.

Cllr Robert Knowles, Leader of Waverley Borough Council, said: “I am extremely pleased to hear the judge strongly dismissed the judicial review application.

“This decision endorses Waverley’s planning processes and legitimises the decision to grant planning permission, for what is sure to be a fantastic community facility, once and for all.

“I look forward to hearing how the new Stepping Stones School will help the children and young adults who attend it to flourish; now its future has been secured.”