Council issuing two enforcement notices against appellant as initial notice defective – Notices alleging unlawful development in two different ways – Whether inspector erred in finding second enforcement notice valid – Town and Country Planning Act 1990 section 171B(4)(b) – Appeal dismissed
In 1983 Welwyn Hatfield District Council (the council) granted the appellant temporary planning permission for a mobile home at Milkwood Farm, Hatfield. That permission was subsequently renewed up to 31 March 1995, but the appellant’s application to renew it on that date was refused. Between March and April 1993, the mobile home was turned into a structure. In March 1996, the council issued an enforcement notice against the appellant, which alleged breach of condition by the retention of the mobile home at the site. On 3 March 1998 the council withdrew the initial enforcement notice and issued a second enforcement notice, which alleged unauthorised erection of a single-storey dwelling.
On appeal, the inspector found that the council were entitled to rely on section 171B(4)(b) of the Town and County Planning Act 1990 in issuing the second enforcement notice, as “both enforcement notices were directed at the same structure”. Section 171B(4)(b) provided that “the preceding subsections do not prevent . . . taking further enforcement action in respect of any breach of planning control if, during the period of four years ending with that action being taken, the local planning authority have taken or purported to take enforcement action in respect of that breach”.
The appellant appealed, pursuant to section 289 of the 1990 Act, on the ground that the inspector had misinterpreted section 171B(4)(b). The appellant submitted that the alleged breaches in the two enforcement notices were quite different, relying on William Boyer v Secretary of State for the Environment [1996] 1 PLR 103.
Held The appeal was dismissed.
The section was clearly concerned with breach of planning control and the time-limits within which enforcement action should be taken. The reference to “that breach” in section 171B(4)(b) was a reference to the matter the subject of the notice, namely, the actual development, rather than the way the actual development was described. The subsection could not be used to cover two separate developments, or two different changes of use, but it could be used to cover the same actual breach, described in different ways. The merit of such a construction could be seen by the facts of the present case, where the transition from a mobile home to operational development was a gradual one, but, in whatever way the breach was described, the planning reasons for taking enforcement action remained the same: Boyer (supra) was distinguished.
The appellant appeared in person; Nathalie Lieven (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first respondent; the second respondents, Welwyn Hatfield District Council, did not appear and were not represented.
Sarah Addenbrooke, barrister
