Meaning of caravan — Planning permission subject to conditions — Caravans and no structures — Chalet erected on site — Whether breach of planning control — Whether chalet a caravan — Whether ‘caravan’ has ordinary meaning or meaning in Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960
In 1961 the
appellant district council’s predecessors granted planning permission for the
continued use of land as a caravan site subject to planning conditions. Only
caravans were permitted, and any other structures required express consent. A chalet
was erected on the site without express consent, and enforcement notices were
issued in 1985. The first respondent, the Secretary of State for the
Environment, allowed appeals against those notices brought by the second
respondent, Allen Caravans (Estates) Ltd, and quashed the notices.
The appellants
appealed against the decision of Mr David Widdicombe QC (sitting as a deputy
High Court judge) to dismiss their appeals against the Secretary of State’s
decision. They contended that the word ‘caravan’ in the planning condition of
1961 had been wrongly construed as having the meaning in the Caravan Sites and
Control of Development Act 1960: it should be given an ordinary English meaning
which would not include the erected chalet and not the enlarged meaning
injected into the law by the 1960 Act and the Town and Country Planning General
Development (Amendment No 2) Order 1960.
the time of the planning permission in 1961, ‘caravan’ was interpreted within
the context of the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 as meaning residential
accommodation on wheels: Brutus v Cozens [1972] 2 All ER 1297.
The word ‘caravan’ in the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 has
an enlarged meaning as including ‘any structure designed or adapted for human
habitation which is capable of being moved from one place to another . . . ‘.
The chalet could be a caravan only if the enlarged meaning applied: see pp
82E-83.
As the
application for planning permission in question was made in November 1960 for
the continued use as a caravan site, the coming into force in the previous
August of the 1960 Act did not give to the word ‘caravan’ in the planning
condition the enlarged meaning. The condition expressly stated that ‘no
structures’ were permitted, ‘structure’ being the very word used in the Act.
Accordingly the word ‘caravan’ in the planning condition must be given its
ordinary meaning and not the enlarged meaning in the 1960 Act: the chalet was a
structure but not a caravan: see pp 82 F and 83C.
to in the judgments
Brutus v Cozens [1973] AC 854; [1972] 2 All ER 1297; (1972) Cr App
R 799; sub nom Cozens v Brutus [1972] 3 WLR 521, HL
Appeal against
a decision of Mr David Widdicombe QC (sitting as a deputy High Court judge)
This was an
appeal against the decision of Mr David Widdicombe QC (sitting as a deputy High
Court judge) to dismiss an appeal against the decision of the
enforcement notices issued by the appellant local planning authority.
MacDonald QC and Timothy Jones (instructed by the solicitor to the district
council) appeared for the appellants.
Ashford-Thom (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first
respondent, the Secretary of State for the Environment.
Joseph (instructed by Tozers, of Exeter) appeared for the second respondents.
following judgments were delivered.
DILLON LJ: I will ask Mann LJ to give the first judgment.
MANN LJ: There is before the court an appeal from Mr David Widdicombe QC,
sitting as a deputy judge of the Queen’s Bench Division, on January 27 1988. On
that day he adjudicated upon an appeal under section 246 of the Town and
Country Planning Act 1971. That appeal was an appeal by the district planning
authority against the quashing by the Secretary of State for the Environment’s
inspector of two enforcement notices. The appellant before this court is the
Wyre Forest District Council. The first respondent is the Secretary of State,
and the second is Allen’s Caravans (Estates) Ltd, who are owners of the site
which was subject to the enforcement notice, that is to say the Sladd Lane
Caravan Site, Wolverley, in Hereford.
In order to
appreciate the matter one has to look at certain events in history. On November
16 1960 there was an application by the second respondents’ predecessors in
title for a planning permission. It is at p 19 of the bundle. It was an
application to the Kidderminster Rural District Council; the appellants are
statutory successors to that council. It is an application in simple form for a
detailed planning permission. In answer to question 5 on the form — which was a
question asking for a brief description of the proposed development and the
existing use of the land or buildings concerned — it was said: ‘Continuation of
use of existing caravan site with revised lay-out. Use of additional area as
caravan site’. And as to the existing use it was said: ‘Part caravan site, part
hostel on de-requisition by the Ministry’.
The reference
to ‘continuation of use’ was a reference to a situation where there was an
extant permission for 60 caravans to be stationed upon the land. There was a
lapse of time after the application because of negotiations about what the
ultimate planning permission should be, but on December 5 1961 the rural
district council granted a permission. It is to be found at pp 21 and 22 of the
bundle. It is headed as follows:
‘Kidderminster
Rural District Council. Town and Country Planning Acts 1947-54. Town and
Country Planning General Development Order 1950’. I then drop some lines and it
continues:
In pursuance
of powers delegated to them by the Worcestershire County Council the Council
hereby permit development comprising 205 caravans situate at Blakeshall Hostel,
Wolverley, in accordance with the application and plan submitted by you and
numbered as above, subject to the following conditions . . .
It is to be
recollected that the application to which reference is made, and which can be
taken into account in accord with established authority in construing the
permission, was the ‘continuation of use of existing caravan site’.
The conditions
were eight in number. It is unnecessary to refer to more than the first four:
(1) This permission shall allow the use of the
land as a holiday caravan site only during the period 1st February – 31st
December in each year. (2) This
application and the site shall be laid out in accordance with the plan. (3) No
structures shall be used for all-the-year-round living accommodation. (4) This
consent relates to the siting of 205 caravans only and no fresh structures
shall be allowed on the site without the specific consent, in writing, of the
Planning Authority.
It is to be
observed that there is a dichotomy between ‘caravans’ and ‘structures’. The
plan referred to appears to show the siting of 205 caravans.
What has
occurred is that on a part of the site there was erected what is popularly
known as a chalet, a structure which can be moved but which lacks wheels. It is
agreed between the parties that in no ordinary and natural meaning of the word
‘caravan’ could the chalet be described as such. As to ‘ordinary and natural
meaning’, reference may be made to, for example, Viscount Dilhorne’s speech in Cozens
v Brutus [1973] AC 854 at p 865G. The erection of the chalet excited the
attention of the district planning authority, who on December 3 1985 served two
enforcement notices, as I understand it in the alternative, but nothing turns
upon that. The first notice asserted a failure to comply with condition (4)
which I have read. The second notice asserted an erection without the grant of
planning permission.
There was an
appeal to the Secretary of State and the appeal was heard by an appointed
person, who on January 5 1987 gave his decision quashing both of the notices.
There was subsequently the appeal to the High Court under section 246, to which
I have referred.
The issue
between the parties is an extremely narrow one. It is as to the meaning of the
word ‘caravan’ as employed in the permission of December 5 1961. At first blush
it might be thought there could be no dubiety about what was meant by ‘caravan’
in that permission. The ordinary person would understand ‘caravan’ as being
residential accommodation on wheels and as not comprehending a chalet such as
we have seen in the photographs. First blush is, however, not sufficient in
this case. It is not sufficient because on August 29 1960 there came into force
the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 and that contained a
definition of ‘caravan’ in section 29(1). The definition was introduced as part
of the licensing regime introduced by that Act, a regime additional or
supplemental to the planning regime.
Section 29(1)
says:
In this Part
of this Act, unless the context otherwise requires — ‘caravan’ means any
structure designed or adapted for human habitation which is capable of being
moved from one place to another (whether by being towed, or by being
transported on a motor vehicle or trailer) and any motor vehicle so designed or
adapted, but does not include . . .
and I need read
no further.
It is agreed
between the parties that the chalet in question is within that definition.
The Town and
Country Planning Act 1947, which was the primary legislation in force at the
time of the planning application in 1960 and of its determination, does not refer
to ‘caravan’ or ‘caravan site’ at all. Its innocence in that regard was
disturbed by sections 21 and 22 of the 1960 Act, which were repealed by the
Town and Country Planning Act 1962. Section 21 of the 1960 Act provided:
After the
commencement of this Act the use of any land as a caravan site shall not be
treated by virtue of subsection (5) of section 12 of the Act of 1947 as a use
for which permission is not required under Part III of the Act of 1947 unless
the land has been so used on one occasion at least during the period of two
years ending with the ninth day of March, nineteen hundred and sixty.
The purpose of
that provision was to take away certain existing use rights — that is rights
existing on July 1 1948. The Act of 1947 permitted a reversion and some
temporary use and permitted occasional uses to continue, and also dealt with
unoccupied land.
The 1960 Act
was followed by an amendment to the then Town and Country Planning General
Development Order and Development Charge Application Regulations of 1950 (SI
728). The amendment was in the Town and Country Planning General Development
(Amendment No 2) Order 1960. By article 2 of that order there was injected into
the 1950 order the definition of ‘caravan’ obtained from the 1960 Act. The
effect of the order — which I think has no great significance in this case —
was to withdraw, in regard to caravan sites, the permission for 28 days and the
permission for certain recreational uses. It also added to permitted uses the
use of caravans in circumstances specified in paras 2 to 9 of the First
Schedule to the 1960 Act, and also to development that was required by a site
licence. The circumstances contained in paras 2 to 9 of the First Schedule to
the 1960 Act are highly specialised. I instance, by reference to the paragraph
headings, ‘Use by a person travelling with a caravan for one or two nights’,
‘Use of holding of five acres or more in certain circumstances’, ‘Sites
occupied and supervised by exempted organisations’, ‘Sites approved by exempted
organisations’, ‘Meetings organised by exempted organisations’, and so on.
The contest,
therefore, is whether the word ‘caravan’ in the permission of December 1961
bears its ordinary and natural meaning or whether it bears the enlarged meaning
injected into the law by the Act of 1960, and, for that matter, by the General
Development (Amendment No 2) Order of 1960.
The appellant
says that the ordinary and natural meaning should be applied. They point to the
distinction in the conditions which is drawn between ‘caravans’ and
‘structures’.
The first
respondent suggested, but withdrew the suggestion, that the application of
November 16 1960, in the terms which I have recited, must be taken to have been
enlarged by the change in the law effected as from August 29 1960. I cannot
accept that for a moment. An application is for what it is and is not capable
of enlargement in the way suggested.
On behalf of
the second respondent, Mr Joseph, in the course of his careful argument,
suggested that as from August 29 1960, any application in regard to caravans
must be considered against the background of the definition of ‘caravan sites’
injected into the law as from that date. For my part, and with respect, I
regard that as quite unrealistic. The application was for continuation of use
of an existing caravan site with revised lay-out. That must have been an
application which regarded caravan in the traditional or ordinary and natural
meaning of the word. I am reinforced in that view by the permission in fact
granted, which differentiates between caravans and structures. If it had been
intended to grant a permission — which I do not think could have been granted
because it would have enlarged the terms of the application — in terms of the
recently introduced definition of ‘caravan’, it would have been easy to say so
and there would have been no differentiation such as one finds in the
conditions.
The learned
deputy judge’s reasons are to be found on p 9 of his judgment, where he says:
Turning back
to the document which has to be construed, I regard it as significant that the
phrase ‘caravan site’ appears in the document. It appears inferentially because
the application was for a caravan site, and the permission is granted for 205
caravans in accordance with the application, and it appears expressly in
Condition No 1 and in Reason No 1. In a document issued under the Town and
Country Planning Act, this phrase must bear the
should not do so. I can see no such reason here. It seems plain enough that the
application for planning permission was made in consequence of the Act of 1960
no doubt with a view to obtaining a site licence under that Act. There is a
clear inference from the circumstances, in my view, that both the application
and the permission were framed in terms of the statutory definition of ‘caravan
site’.
If that is
so, it must follow almost inevitably, in my view, that the word ‘caravan’ in
the document also has its statutory meaning. The definition of ‘caravan site’
contains the word ‘caravan’ with its statutory meaning. What possible reason
could there be for the word to have a different meaning than that when it
appears in the same document? To ascribe
a different meaning to it would lead to hopeless confusion both in the
construction and the application of the permission.
I regret, and
with great respect, I cannot follow the learned deputy judge through his
reasoning. I think the simplest course for those who consider the terms of
planning permissions is to regard the words employed in them in their ordinary
and natural meaning. In the ordinary and natural meaning, as is agreed, this
chalet is not a caravan. I would accordingly allow this appeal.
TAYLOR LJ: I agree.
DILLON LJ: I also agree.
Appeal allowed;
decision of the deputy judge set aside and case remitted to the Secretary of
State. Appellants to have their costs of the appeal against both respondents
and their costs of the hearing at first instance against the second respondent.
Leave to appeal to the House of Lords refused.
