Town and country planning – Gypsies – Green belt – Appellant Romani gypsy living with family in mobile home sited on land in green belt – Planning permission refused for retention of that development and enforcement notice issued – First respondent upholding that decision contrary to recommendation of planning inspector – Whether first respondent failing to take into account likelihood of family moving to another unauthorised site in green belt with same or greater harm as that arising on existing site – Appeal dismissed
The appellant, a Romani gypsy, lived in a mobile home which was sited, in breach of planning control, on green belt land in Chertsey, Surrey. The second respondent council refused the appellant’s planning application for the retention of the mobile home, to be used to accommodate one gypsy family, together with one touring caravan, one timber shed and existing hard standing and gravel driveway. They also issued an enforcement notice against the development, giving a period of nine months for compliance.
The appellant appealed to the first respondent, who decided that planning permission should not be granted but that the time for compliance with the enforcement notice should be extended from nine to 18 months. In reaching that decision, the first respondent disagreed with the recommendation of his planning inspector, set out in a report, that the enforcement notice should be quashed and a temporary three-year planning permission should be granted.
The inspector’s report identified the main issue as to whether very special circumstances existed to outweigh the harm to the green belt caused by the development. The inspector found that, if planning permission was refused, the family would move onto another unauthorised site, probably in the green belt, with all the attendant problems that that would bring, including detriment to the health of the appellant’s daughter if she could no longer be seen by her current doctor and detriment to the children’s education if they had to move schools. He found that that would amount to interference with the family’s rights under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998 and he concluded that very special circumstances did exist.
While the first respondent substantially agreed with the inspector’s findings, including the likelihood that the appellant’s family would move to another unauthorised site, he nonetheless concluded that very special circumstances did not exist to justify the development.
The appellant brought proceedings under sections 288 and 289 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to challenge the first respondent’s decision. She contended that the first respondent had failed to take into account the likelihood, as identified in the inspector’s report, that any move by the family would be to another site in the green belt, which would cause the same, and perhaps greater, harm as the continued residential use of their existing site. That argument was rejected in the court below and the appellant appealed.
Held: The appeal was dismissed.
(1) The first respondent had not failed to grapple with the issue raised by the appellant. Having accepted the inspector’s findings as to the likelihood of the appellant’s family moving to another unauthorised site if the appeals were dismissed, it was not necessary for the first respondent to go further and specifically refer, as the inspector had done, to the likelihood that the unauthorised site would be in the green belt. The first respondent was not obliged to replicate every word of the inspector’s report. In practice, it would have been plain to those reading the first respondent’s decision letter, and who had knowledge of the underlying facts, that the unauthorised site would necessarily have been in the green belt: Moore v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government [2013] EWCA Civ 1194; [2013] PLSCS 232 distinguished.
(2) Further, in upholding the first respondent’s decision, the judge had sufficiently dealt with the issue, raised by counsel for the appellant in oral submissions, as to the impact of the decision on the appellant’s family and their traditional way of life.
Marc Willers QC and Maria Moodie (instructed by South West Law, of Bristol) appeared for the appellant; Stephen Whale (instructed by the Government Legal Department) appeared for the first respondent; the second respondents did not appear and were not represented.
Sally Dobson, barrister