Neighbours and asymmetries in planning law, servitudes and nuisance in England and France

Thesis

This thesis examines the regulation of neighbourhood land use conflicts in England and France through three bodies of rules: planning law, the law of servitudes, and nuisance. The purpose of this comparative examination is to construct a new way of understanding the relationship between these three bodies of rules in England, which draws attention to two underexplored features: ‘neighbours’ and ‘asymmetries’. In England, it is shown that the ‘neighbour’ has a merely peripheral, and imprecisely defined, place within planning law, the law of servitudes and nuisance. This feature is illuminated through a contrast with French law, where the ‘neighbour’ has a central and precisely defined place within all three bodies of law. Planning law, the law of servitudes and nuisance are then shown to be ‘asymmetric’: each body of law can be conceptualised as comprising of two differently-shaped and sometimes incommensurable halves, which result in inequalities in treatment between neighbours experiencing comparable land use conflicts, using land in comparable ways. The three bodies of English law exhibit opposing asymmetries: each body of law is asymmetric in a distinct way, which acts against the asymmetries of the other two bodies of law, such that the asymmetries pull in diverging directions. This feature is again illuminated through a contrast with French law, where all three bodies of law exhibit consistent asymmetries: they are asymmetric in the same ways, and the asymmetries pull in the same direction. Together, the two features identified in this thesis show that the opposing asymmetries across the three bodies of English law serve a crucial function in that system: they counterbalance each other to ensure that the three bodies of law, together, can regulate neighbourhood land use conflicts effectively, despite the fact that none of them accords a central or precisely defined place to the neighbour.

Authors: Chen, C

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-qod02ewbz
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English