On Tuesday 19 May 2026, the Court of Appeal (Dove LJ, Newey LJ and Sir Nicholas Underhill) heard an appeal brought by City Outdoor Media Limited concerning a discontinuance notice served in respect of a large digital advertising display in Manchester. The significant question at the heart of this appeal is the appropriate width an inspector's inquiry when determining an appeal against a discontinuance notice.

At the heart of the appeal is the distinction between regulation 8(1)(a) — which allows a local planning authority to require the discontinuance of a particular advertisement — and regulation 8(1)(b), under which a notice may instead require the cessation of all advertising use of a site. Manchester City Council had served a reg. 8(1)(b) notice of unusually broad effect, removing every class of deemed advertising consent from the site. The Appellant’s case was that an inspector determining an appeal against such a notice is obliged to consider whether it is necessary to remove each of the targeted classes of deemed consent in order to remedy a substantial injury to amenity — not merely to assess the single display present on site at the time of the hearing. The inspector had done only the latter, and HHJ Pearce in the Planning Court upheld that approach, relying on the Court of Appeal's earlier decision in Putney Bridge Approach Ltd v SSCLG [2019] PTSR 1431.

The appeal invites the Court to clarify Putney Bridge, which the Appellant says has been misread as authority for a much broader proposition than it in fact provides. This case is therefore of importance and practical significance to all in the advertising industry – upholding the discontinuance notice without scrutiny of all removed deemed consent classes arguably means that even the most modest functional signage would be treated as causing substantial injury to amenity at the site, possibly prejudicing any future application for express consent.

Gregory Jones KC and Charles Merrett were instructed by Emily Williams of Addleshaw Goddard for the Appellant