Highway

Applications had been made to the appellant local authority for modification of the definitive map and statement. The authority rejected the applications on the ground that the maps that had accompanied the applications had been by computer generated enlargements of Ordnance Survey (OS) maps drawn to a scale of 1:50,000 and not by maps drawn to a scale of not less than 1:25,000. The respondents’ application for judicial review was dismissed by the Administrative Court, but the appeal was allowed by the Court of Appeal, Civil Division. In dismissing the authority’s appeal, the Supreme Court held that a map which accompanied an application, and was presented at a scale of no less than 1:25,000, satisfied the requirement in para 1(a) of Sch 14 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 of being “drawn to the prescribed scale” in circumstances where it had been digitally derived from an original map with a scale of 1:50,000.