Land – Planning control – Local authority – Human rights – Appellant storing vehicles on land without express permission – Respondent local authority issuing enforcement notices – Justices convicting appellant for non-compliance – Whether prosecution denying appellant’s right to determine civil rights and obligations – Appeal dismissed
The appellant was the tenant and occupier of certain land upon which he stored vehicles without express planning permission. In March 2003, the respondents, as local planning authority, issued enforcement notices, requiring the appellant to remove the vehicles. These were subsequently rescinded when the respondents were told that the appellant had not received the notices because he had been abroad. However, on 30 April, the respondents served new notices on the appellant by hand at his address. They were posted through his letterbox in envelopes that stated: “Important, affects your property”.
The deadline for appealing against those notices expired on 5 June, but the appellant was again out of the country when the notices were served and did not discover them until he returned on 6 June. The appellant was given until 6 September to comply with the notices; when he failed to do so, the respondents, pursuant to section 179 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, authorised prosecution proceedings before the magistrates for non-compliance.
The appellant was convicted. However, he appealed to the crown court, contending that the prosecution breached his human rights under Article 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights, since he was being denied the opportunity to determine his civil rights and obligations. The appeal was dismissed on the bases that the respondents had acted in good faith and that the appellant bore a significant responsibility for being unaware of the enforcement proceedings because he should have taken steps to ensure that his post had been checked while he was out of the country. The appellant appealed by way of case stated.
Held: The appeal was dismissed.
The respondents had not deprived the appellant of his civil rights. They had taken all reasonable steps to inform him of their resolution to prosecute him for non-compliance with the enforcement notices and he could have determined his civil rights by appealing against those notices. His failure to lodge such an appeal had deprived him of his civil rights, bearing in mind that he had been granted more time than was required by statute to lodge an appeal but had still failed to do so.
The crown court had considered all relevant matters, in particular whether the appellant should have reasonably anticipated that he would be served with enforcement notices. To a large extent, the appellant had been the author of his own misfortune, and the respondents’ prosecution for non-compliance had not deprived him of his civil rights.
Jonathon Dee (instructed by Langleys, of Lincoln) appeared for the appellant; the respondent did not appear and was not represented.
Eileen O’Grady, barrister
