The council, developers and landowners have since signed an agreement allowing full planning permission to be granted.

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Looking back, it was critical to have had mutual agreement beforehand, since it was far easier to ask for permission than to continually ask for forgiveness.

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But the White House has already made it clear that in the Iraq agreement, it won't go to Congress to ask for permission.

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Concessions (that is, permission to retain trade barriers) were sought and granted in successive negotiating rounds of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

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The agreement lasted for a quarter of a century, after which individual families began petitioning judges for permission to exhume lost loved ones.

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