The statutory power conferred by section 96A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to make non-material changes to a planning permission includes the power to make non-material changes to conditional approvals of reserved matters. The planning permission referred to in section 96A is the package consisting of the grant of planning permission itself, together with any conditions to which the grant is subjected, whether the conditions are imposed at the time of or subsequent to the grant of permission. An application for an amendment to an approval (or conditional approval) of reserved matters is an application for the alteration of an existing condition, which is expressly permitted by section 96A(3)(b). Since the power under section 96A is restricted to non-material changes, a change in approved reserved matters can have no material impact (para 35).

Where, therefore, the claimant’s application for permission to proceed with a a claim for judicial review of the decision of the local planning authority to approve a non-material amendment to a conditional approval of reserved matters on the ground that there had been no power to do so under section 96A of the 1990 Act had been refused, and where the claimant appealed against that refusal—