Caravan site licence — Conditions — Unconditional planning permission — Conditions requiring winter removal — Application to exclude condition — Whether condition lawfully imposed — Appeal by site owner allowed
The appellant owns an 8-acre caravan site at Runton, Cromer, Norfolk. By virtue of section 17 of the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960, the appellant has an unconditional deemed planning permission for the use of the site. In 1979 a site licence was granted to the appellant subject to a condition that no caravan can be occupied between November 1 and March 19 and that all caravans must be removed by October 31 and not brought back before March 20 the following year.
The appellant’s appeal to the Divisional Court, against a decision of the magistrates dismissing his appeal against a refusal of the respondent council to exclude all or part of the condition, was dismissed. The Divisional Court decided that the magistrates were entitled to take into account evidence relating to the visual amenity afforded by the removal of the caravans in deciding whether the respondents were entitled to impose the condition under section 5(1)(d) requiring winter removal.
Held The appeal was allowed.
Section 5(1)(a) of the 1960 Act permits the imposition of a condition “for restricting the occasions on which caravans are stationed on the land for the purposes of human habitation, or the total number of caravans which are so stationed at any one time…”. The respondents’ contention that that empowered the requirement to remove the caravans in the second sentence of the condition in issue was not accepted.
In general terms, section 5 does not justify the inclusion in a site licence of conditions which are imposed for purely planning reasons. A site licence cannot be granted unless the applicant has obtained planning permission. When granting planning permission the local planning authority could impose a condition as to removal of caravans in winter. If they do so, no compensation is payable. But if, as in the present case, there is no planning permission condition, compensation would be payable if a condition were later imposed for amenity reasons; a local planning authority cannot avoid the compensation obligation by imposing such a condition in a site licence.
The condition is directed not to the site as a caravan site but to the improvement of the visual amenity during the winter. It is an invalid condition.
Jeremy Sullivan QC and Jane Wilson (instructed by Hansell Stevenson & Co, of Norwich) appeared for the appellant; and the Hon Hugh Donovan (instructed by Sharpe Pritchard for the solicitor to North Norfolk District Council) appeared for the respondents.
