Town and Country Planning Act 1971–Appeal against conviction for failing to comply with enforcement notice–Unimportant errors in notice–No material defect–Appeal dismissed
This was an
appeal by Jivanji Madhavji Patel from a decision of Middlesex Crown Court
dismissing his appeal against conviction by justices sitting at Willesden for
failing to comply with an enforcement notice served upon him by Kenneth Bernard
Betts, town clerk, on behalf of the London Borough of Brent, requiring him to
discontinue the use of the ground-floor front room at 107 Dudden Hill Lane,
Willesden, London NW10, as a stationery store on the ground that such use was a
breach of planning control.
Barry Payton
(instructed by Kingsley, Napley & Co) appeared for the appellant; C
Cochrane (instructed by the Solicitor’s Department, London Borough of Brent)
appeared for the respondent.
Giving the
first judgment, FORBES J said that the appellant was the occupier of premises
at 107 Dudden Hill Lane, Willesden, which had two ground-floor front rooms. At
some time before April 1973, the appellant began using one of the rooms for the
storage of stationery in connection with his business. In March 1974 the
respondents, the London Borough of Brent, served an enforcement notice upon the
appellant pointing out that such use of the front room was a breach of planning
control and requiring him to discontinue such use. The appellant did not comply
and in due course he was convicted by justices sitting at Willesden on an
information preferred by the respondents. From that decision the appellant
appealed to the Crown Court and that appeal was dismissed.
The sole
question in this appeal, as before the Crown Court, was whether or not the
enforcement notice was valid. The appellant complained of three errors in that
notice. The first error was that it did not allege a past breach of planning
control because the notice was dated March 1974 and it alleged the breach took
place on April 1974. That was clearly an error for April 1973. The second error
complained of was the allegation that the land was developed by use of the
ground-floor front room instead of alleging a material change of use. The third
error was that the notice did not specify which of the two front rooms it
referred to. For the appellant it was accepted that if any one of the errors
had existed by itself he would not have thought it right to appeal, but, it was
contended, the three errors added up to a material error.
Since the case
of Miller-Mead v Minister of Housing and Local Government [1963]
2 QB 196 the law had been that if an enforcement notice suffered from defects
then the Secretary of State had powers to amend under what is now section 88(4)
of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971.
What had to be
shown for the appellant to succeed was that the totality of the errors in the
notice amounted to an injustice. One had to bear in mind that the appellant
knew what he was doing, he knew when he started using the room as a stationery
store, and he knew which of the two front rooms was being used. The error in
the date was completely irrelevant and the failure to specify which of the
ground-floor rooms was being used in breach of planning control was also
irrelevant. There remained only the second error. Speaking for himself he could
not think that that had caused an injustice. Not one of the errors amounted to
a material error and three times zero was still zero. The appeal should be
dismissed.
LORD WIDGERY
CJ and CROOM-JOHNSON J agreed.
The appeal
was dismissed with costs.
