Background
Segrue Investments Limited challenged Swindon Borough Council’s refusal to issue revised Community Infrastructure Levy liability notices for two residential developments at a former HSBC bank. The notices assessed total CIL liability of £125,274.64. Segrue contended that the existing building qualified as an “in-use building,” which would reduce that liability to zero.
The council had told Segrue that a formal review under regulation 113 of the Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations 2010 had to be requested within 28 days of each liability notice, with a further appeal available under regulation 114. Segrue did not use those procedures in time. It instead supplied information incrementally, including material about the bank’s ATMs and safe, and relied upon a Valuation Office Agency appeal decision concerning another bank. After the council maintained that the appeal period had expired and CIL remained payable, Segrue sought judicial review, relying on the council’s July 2025 refusal to exercise any discretion to revise the notices under regulation 65.
The Court’s Holding
Sir Peter Lane granted permission at the rolled-up hearing but dismissed every ground. The statutory review and appeal procedures in regulations 113 and 114 were a suitable alternative remedy. The substance of the evidence and arguments on which Segrue later relied could, with reasonable diligence, have been assembled and advanced through those procedures. Regulation 65(5) did not require the council to give substantive consideration to the belated material, and the council had already substantively exercised its discretion when it considered Segrue’s post-deadline submissions in early 2023.
The claim was also out of time. The council’s position was fully articulated by 2023 and, even if the later VOA decision restarted the clock, the council’s email of 13 November 2024 was the relevant challengeable decision. The July 2025 email merely confirmed the council’s longstanding position and did not constitute a new decision that restarted the judicial-review time limit. No extension of time had been sought.
The substantive grounds failed as well. The council had not unlawfully refused to perform its functions under regulation 65(4) or (5), acted irrationally, disregarded considerations it was required to address, or given inadequate reasons. Its explanation that the statutory review and appeal periods had passed was legally sufficient in the circumstances.
Key Takeaways
- A developer disputing a CIL calculation should use the regulation 113 review and regulation 114 appeal procedures within their strict deadlines.
- Regulation 65(5), which permits a collecting authority to issue a revised liability notice at any time, did not require substantive reconsideration of material that could and should have been presented through the statutory review and appeal process.
- Repeated requests for reconsideration do not restart the judicial-review clock when the authority merely confirms an earlier, settled position.
Why It Matters
The judgment underscores the procedural finality of the CIL regime. Commercial developers cannot preserve a challenge by submitting potentially relevant evidence piecemeal after allowing the prescribed review and appeal periods to expire.
It also illustrates the distinction between a genuinely new administrative decision and correspondence merely reaffirming an existing one. That distinction can determine whether a judicial-review claim is timely.