Change of use — Enforcement notice — Farm — Mixed agricultural and horse livery use — Whether livery use integral part of agricultural use — Whether functional need for dwelling in local plan policy satisfied by reference to livery use — Claim dismissed
The claimants had issued an enforcement notice against the second and third defendants, the owners of a farm in the green belt. The notice alleged a breach of planning control, consisting of a change of use of the land from agricultural use to a mixed use of agricultural, equine (the keeping of horses at livery) and residential use. The planning inspector allowed an appeal by the second and third defendants against the issue of the notice under section 174 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The inspector had varied the notice, then quashed it and granted planning permission for agricultural and equine use, and for the stationing of a mobile home for residential use, subject to conditions.
The claimants applied, under section 288 of the 1990 Act, to quash that decision. They contended that the inspector’s interpretation that the tests in annex I to PPG 7 could be met by reference to a livery business was wrong in law, because those tests applied to agricultural development only, and not to a livery business. Furthermore, they claimed that the inspector’s conclusion that a mobile home amounted to appropriate development in the green belt in accordance with PPG 2 was wrong in law; as the inspector had wrongly concluded that the references to “agriculture” should include farm diversification for the purposes of annex I, such interpretation applied equally to the meaning of “agriculture” within PPG 2.
Held: The claim was dismissed.
Interpretation of policy was a matter of judgment for the decision maker. If, in all the circumstances, the wording of the adopted policy was properly capable of more than one meaning, and the decision maker adopted and applied a meaning that it was capable of bearing as a matter of law, he or she would not have erred in law. It was necessary to remember that planning policy guidance documents were not a set of rules written by lawyers for lawyers: R v Derbyshire County Council, ex parte Woods [1997] JPL 958 applied.
The inspector had lawfully and properly determined the appeal, and had taken into account all relevant considerations and applyed his own judgment and legitimate interpretation of policy. He fully appreciated that livery use per se was not an agricultural use, but explained clearly why he had reached the view that it was reasonable to consider that the livery use operated as part of a farming system in this case. He had therefore been entitled to take the balanced and pragmatic approach of concluding that livery use came within a farming enterprise for the purposes of annex I to PPG 7, and he had not fallen into error in his approach to PPG 2.
Matthew Reed (instructed by the solicitor to Guildford Borough Council) appeared for the claimant; James Strachan (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first defendant. The second and third defendants did not appear and were not represented.
Eileen O’Grady, barrister
