Objector having no right to gain access to read notice displayed on newly installed telecommunications tower - notice legible and valid - Court of Appeal having power to extend time for appealing even after inordinate delay

Jones and others v T Mobile (UK) Ltd: CA (Lords Justice Kennedy and Brooke and Mr Justice Holman): 31 July 2003

The defendant company, a telecommunications operator, installed a tower adjacent to railway track land and displayed on it a notice, as required by paragraph 18(2) of schedule 2 to the Telecommunications Act 1984.

The claimants commenced proceedings for the removal of the tower after serving their notice of objection more than three months after the display of the notice.

The defendant applied to strike out the action on the basis that the claimants had failed to serve their notice within the three-month period prescribed by paragraph 17 of schedule 2.

The judge refused the application on the ground that the notice was illegible because the objectors could not, as a matter of right, gain access to the displayed notice in order to read it.

The defendant, having failed to lodge its appeal on time, sought an extension of time for appealing.

Richard Humphreys (instructed by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer) for the defendant; Alex Hall Taylor (instructed by Clyde & Co) for the claimants.

Held, extending time and allowing the appeal, that the requirement of legibility meant that the notice should be at such a height on the apparatus, not masked by part of the apparatus or other obstruction, and of such size that it could be read with reasonable comfort; that there was nothing in schedule 2 to suggest that the objector should be able to read it from land to which, as a member of the public, he had the right of access; that, accordingly, the notice was not illegible and the three-month period had begun to run when the notice had been displayed; and that it was apparent from the Access to Justice Act 1999 (Destination of Appeals) Order 2000 and Practice Direction supplementing the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 (CPR), part 52 that an appeal from the final order of the county court was to the Court of Appeal and that, under CPR, rule 3(1)(2)(a), the court had power, if justice so required, to extend time, even after a long delay, on terms.