Enforcement notices — Time limit — Section 171B(1) of Town and Country Planning Act 1990 — Appellants welding together two caravans to create single structure — Second caravan needing renovation and continuing repairs — Whether structure being “substantially completed” as at time of welding or when repairs completed — Appeal dismissed
In 1998, the appellants welded together two caravans, removing the wheels, setting them on foundations, and fashioning internal access, so as to create a single family dwelling. Over the next few years, they continued to repair and update the structure, finally encasing it in wooden cladding in 2001.
In 2002, the second respondent local authority issued enforcement notices for the removal of the structure. The appellants maintained that the notices were invalid pursuant to section 171B(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, since the structure had been completed more than four years prior to the issue of the notices. An inspector upheld the validity of the notices on the grounds that the building had not been “substantially completed” for the purposes of the Act until the wooden cladding had been added. The issue for the court was whether the inspector had misapplied the test for “substantial completion” as set out in Sage v Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions [2003] UKHL 22; [2003] 1 PLR 121.
Held: The appeal was dismissed.
The inspector had been correct in his application of Sage. One of the caravans had been in such a poor state of repair at the time it was bolted to the other that it was virtually uninhabitable. It was made habitable only by a continuing programme of repairs, which meant that by the time the cladding was added, the caravan had, for all intents and purposes, been rebuilt. On that basis, the date at which the cladding was attached marked the date that the repairs were finished and the building was completed.
Natasha Peter (instructed by Francis Thatcher & Co, of Leigh-on-Sea) appeared for the appellants; Philip Coppel (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the respondents.
Vivienne Lane, barrister
