Enforcement notice–Sole issue whether development occurred before January 1 1964–Evidence each way before inspector–No error of law on part of inspector or Secretary of State–Owner’s appeal dismissed
This was an
appeal by David Arthur Wild and AGM Car Hire against an enforcement notice
served by the second respondents, Hillingdon Borough Council, in May 1974 and
approved with minor amendments by the first respondent, the Secretary of State
for the Environment, requiring them to discontinue the use of land at Sipson
Farm, Sipson Road, West Drayton, Middlesex, for the purposes of a car-hire
business.
B Payton and D
Di Mambro (instructed by Wood, Nash & Winters) appeared for the appellants,
and H K Woolf (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) represented the first
respondent. The second respondents took no part in the proceedings.
Giving
judgment, LORD WIDGERY said that the sole issue between the parties was whether
the development of which complaint was made in the enforcement notice, namely
that of change of use to a car-hire business, had taken place before January 1
1964. The appellants’ contention was that it had, and the respondents claimed
the contrary. At the inquiry before a ministry inspector, there was a conflict
between the oral evidence given on behalf of the appellants, to the effect that
use of the site had begun before the end of 1963, and written statements of the
appellants produced by the respondents which tended to show that the use had
begun only in the spring of 1964 at the earliest. The inspector found in the
light of all the evidence that the appellants had not discharged the onus on
them of proving that the development had taken place before January 1 1964, and
his finding, with his recommendation that the appeal should be dismissed, had
been accepted by the Secretary of State. It was clear that there was evidence
before the inspector tending each way on the relevant issue, and clear that it
was for the inspector, in the first instance, to resolve the conflict of
evidence that resulted. He had done so, and it could not be said that there had
been any error of law, either on his part or on the part of the Secretary of State.
In particular, it could not be said that the use of the phrase ‘no
uncorroborated evidence’ meant that the Secretary of State had adopted a
criminal standard of proof; he (his Lordship) thought that these words meant
only that there was no disinterested witness who was in a position to support
the appellants’ case. In these circumstances there was no ground upon which the
court could interfere with the decision, and the appeal accordingly failed.
KILNER BROWN
and WATKINS JJ agreed, and the appeal was dismissed with costs.
