PP 2012/132

Town and country planning Change of use Section 55(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 provides that the making of any “material change in the use of any buildings or other land” amounts to development for the purposes of that Act. Accordingly, planning permission is required. In determining, in the first place, whether any activity amounts to a change of use, what has to be considered is whether the nature or the character of the use has changed. Whether a “material change” of use has occurred in any instance is largely a question of fact and degree for the decision maker. Accordingly, the court will only interfere where the decision is one to which the decision maker could not reasonably have come. In Moore v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government [2012] EWCA Civ 1202; [2012] PLSCS 189 the appellant owned a property in respect of which planning permission had been granted in 1999 for conversion into an eight bedroomed dwellinghouse. Between 1999 and 2007, the property was occupied as a dwelling by a family. Following that, it had been let commercially by the appellant for short-term holiday occupation. On an enforcement notice appeal, the inspector concluded that there had been a material change of use to use for the purpose of what the local planning authority had described in an enforcement notice as “commercial leisure accommodation”. (He had particularly noted that many of the bookings were for three nights only, groups that occupied largely did so as a result of a shared interest rather than a family connection, members often travelled in separate cars and frequently a lack of consideration was shown for neighbours.) The Court of Appeal held that the inspector had proceeded correctly. He had compared the character of the current use with that of the previous lawful use. Having carefully examined the characteristics of the commercial lettings, he had been entitled to conclude that, as a matter of fact and degree, they constituted a material change of use from the permitted use as a dwellinghouse. NB. Sullivan LJ went to lengths to stress that, because the question in each case is one of fact and degree, neither of two possible extreme propositions was correct. Those propositions were (i) using a dwellinghouse for commercial holiday lettings would always amount to a material change of use and (ii) using a dwellinghouse for commercial holiday lettings could never amount to a material change of use. John Martin