The advice by the Court of Appeal in their decision against the council in Welwyn Hatfield Council v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government was that local planning authorities need to look carefully at the inside of buildings, not just at the exterior, when determining whether a building has been constructed and used in accordance with planning permission.In this fascinating case, the Court of Appeal allowed a landowner's appeal and held that the… [read post]

The court described the applicable standard of review as follows:In 1977 the Court of Appeals decided Matter of Acting Superintendent of Schools of Liverpool Cent. [read post]

That claim, with the makers of which Neil would be just about the last person on earth to make common cause, of course feeds all too nicely into the complementary (and indeed complementarily absurd) rightwing narrative which has it that the existence of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Barney Frank, and, who knows, now perhaps even Barny Rubble, 'socialism,' Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, the NAACP, foodstamps, the Democratic Party, President Obama's birth certificate, MSNBC,… [read post]