Planning permission — Council granting conditional permission for extension — Restriction upon use as single dwelling — Breach of condition — Council issuing enforcement notice — Whether condition valid and enforceable — Relevant time limit for enforcement action — Section 171B of Town and Country Planning Act 1990 — Appeal allowed
In 1988, the second respondent obtained planning permission for an extension to her property to accommodate a dependent relative. The permission was granted subject to certain conditions. Under condition 4, the extension was to be occupied only by the specified relative. Under condition 5, if vacated by the relative, the extension was to be used only for purposes incidental to the main property as a single dwelling-house and was not to be used as independent residential accommodation.
In 2004, the appellant council served an enforcement notice upon the second respondent on the ground that the extension had been occupied since 1996 in breach of condition 5. The second respondent appealed that notice to the first respondent secretary of state whose inspector concluded that condition 5 was invalid because the way it was worded rendered it incapable of bearing a sensible meaning. In any event, the inspector concluded that the enforcement notice had been served out of time since the breach came within section 171B(2) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, which specified a time period for issuing such a notice of four years from the date of the breach.
The appellant appealed, contending that: (i) the inspector had erred in law in deciding that condition 5 was invalid since its meaning was clear when viewed in the context of condition 4; and (ii) the enforcement notice had been validly served because the breach came under section 171B(3), for which the appropriate time limit was 10 years.
Held: The appeal was allowed.
(i) Read in the context of the original permission as a whole, condition 5 was valid and enforceable. A planning purpose might be achieved by imposing a number of succinct but related conditions that could be read together if to do so would clarify their meaning. In the present case, a sensible reading of conditions 4 and 5 together made their meaning sufficiently clear.
(ii) The inspector had erroneously applied the four-year rule pursuant to section 171B(2). Section 171B(2) imposed a four-year time limit for issuing an enforcement notice for a breach of planning control by virtue of a material change of use. In this case, the enforcement notice concerned the breach of a condition that fell within section 171B(3), which provided for a 10-year time limit: Bloomfield v Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions [1999] 2 PLR 79 and R v Tunbridge Wells Borough Council, ex parte Blue Boys Developments Ltd [1990] 1 PLR 55 distinguished.
Anne Williams (instructed by the legal department of Arun District Council) appeared for the appellants; Jonathan Auburn (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first respondent. The second respondent did not appear and was not represented.
Eileen O’Grady, barrister
