Conversion of property into 10 self-contained units of residential accommodation – Whether conversion constituting change of use to use as 10 single dwellinghouses – Meaning of dwellinghouse – Whether inspector applying incorrect test – Town and Country Planning Act 1990 section 171 B(2)
The appellant, M, was joint owner of Ladycross Lodge, Beaulieu, Brockenhurst, Hampshire, a large Edwardian house set in extensive grounds. He acquired the property with N in 1985 and, without having obtained planning permission, restored the house and converted outbuildings to provide 10 self-contained units of residential accomodation to be available to the public on short lets. The units were managed as one entity. Nine of the 10 units were in use before May 26 1991. On May 26 1995 New Forest District Council issued two enforcement notices, of which the first alleged breach of planning control in respect of the change of use of the material part of the property “from residential to a mixed use of residential and as ten units of holiday accommodation”. Section 171B(2) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 imposed a four-year time-limit during which enforcement action might be taken “where there has been a breach of planning control consisting in the change of use of any building to use as a single dwelling-house”.
M appealed against both notices and an inspector appointed by the Secretary of State for the Environment, the respondent, held a public inquiry. Having considered the inspector’s report, the respondent, in a decision letter dated January 12 1996, directed an extension of time for compliance, dismissed the appeal against the notice, upheld it as varied and refused planning permission. M appealed, but his appeal was dismissed. M then appealed to the Court of Appeal contending that the respondent had erred in law in accepting the inspector’s conclusion that the use to which a change had been made was not “a use of separate parts of these outbuildings as ten single dwellinghouses, but a use of the whole as one unit for the purposes of holiday accommodation comprising ten apartments”. M submitted that the decision was wrongly based on the concept of the planning unit, and that it was based on an incorrect view of the meaning of “dwelling-house”.
Held The appeal was allowed.
1. The concept of the planning unit had no part to play in a case where there had been a change of use from use as a single dwellinghouse to use as two or more separate dwellinghouses within section 55(3)(a) of the Act: see Van Dyck v Secretary of State for the Environment [1993] 1 PLR 124, per Simon Brown LJ, at p133.
2. However, the units in the instant case into which the dwellinghouse had been subdivided were themselves single dwellinghouses for the purposes of section 171B(2). The inspector, and through him the respondent, had adopted an incorrect meaning of dwellinghouse: see Gravesham Borough Council v Secretary of State for the Environment (1984) 47 P&CR 142. There was no requirement that before a building could be described as a dwellinghouse it had to be occupied as the permament home of one or more persons. Nor did 10 self-contained units of residential accommodation, which would otherwise be properly described as 10 single dwellinghouses, cease to be used as such because they were managed as a whole for the commercial purpose of holiday or other temporary lettings. Had the respondent applied the correct test, he could only have concluded that the ten units were being used as 10 single dwellinghouses within section 171B(2) of the 1990 Act.
Alun Alesbury (instructed by Porter Bartlett & Mayo, of Yeovil) appeared for the appellant; David Elvin (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first respondent, the Secretary of State for the Environment; the second respondents, New Forest District Council, did not appear and were not represented.
