Claimants operating mobile catering vans – Defendant council resolving to adopt street-trading scheme – Scheme prohibiting trading on sites used by claimants – Defendants offering claimants alternative sites at annual fee – Claimants seeking to quash defendants’ decision to adopt scheme – Whether defendants’ decision Wednesbury unreasonable – Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982 – Whether defendants’ decision breaching claimants’ right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions – Article 1 of European Convention on Human Rights – Claim dismissed
The claimants each owned a mobile catering van. Crawley Borough Council (the defendants) resolved to adopt a street-trading scheme under section 3 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982. Pursuant to the scheme, street trading was permitted only: (i) on designated sites known as “consent streets”; (ii) with the permission of the district council; and (iii) upon payment of an annual fee. The claimants’ vans were located on streets that were designed as “prohibited” by the scheme, and the claimants were therefore unable to continue to trade from their customary sites. Each claimant was offered, for an annual fee, a site on a consent street. The claimants sought an order quashing the defendants’ decision to adopt the scheme.
The claimants submitted that, by virtue of the 1982 Act, it was Wednesbury unreasonable for the defendants to adopt the scheme. They argued that the defendants had failed to take into account the fact that both claimants had planning permission, under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, to park their vans on their respective sites, and that each claimant had an economic interest in the land. It was further submitted that, by virtue of sections 102 and 115 of the 1990 Act, the defendants should have considered an order of discontinuance and the payment of compensation. In the absence of this consideration, the claimants argued that they had been deprived of their rights without compensation. The claimants also alleged that the defendants were in breach of Article 1 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights, in that their use of the 1982 Act was disproportionate and interfered with the claimants’ peaceful enjoyment of their possessions.
Held: The claim was dismissed.
While planning permission ran with the land, its grant did not confer any right to the land, it merely permitted the claimants lawfully to use the land in a particular way. The claimants were not entitled to sell the land, nor did they have a right to occupy it. The scheme, therefore, did not affect their rights to land: at most, it resulted in a restriction of the claimants’ use of the vans. The defendants were entitled to invoke the 1982 Act, as opposed to relying upon planning legislation, which would have been piecemeal and probably ineffective. The defendants, by virtue of the 1982 Act, after consultation, had a wide discretion to adopt a comprehensive and flexible solution to the problem. Faced with two options, the defendants were not obliged, under domestic law, to adopt the route that gave rise to compensation: Colonial Sugar Refining Co Ltd v Melbourne Harbour Trust Commissioners [1927] AC 343; Hartnell v Minister of Housing and Local Government [1965] AC 1134; and Westminster Bank Ltd v Beverley Borough Council [1971] AC 508 considered.
Further, the evidence suggests that the defendants did consider section 102, but, given the clear justification for using the 1982 Act, any failure to consider section 102 was not, on the facts of the case, unlawful. On the assumption that there had been interference with Article 1 of the Convention, there had been no deprivation, nor was the use of the 1982 Act disproportionate.
Alan Masters (instructed by Argles Stoneham Burstows) appeared for the claimants; Rupert Warren (instructed by the solicitor to Crawley Borough Council) appeared for the defendants.
Sarah Addenbrooke, barrister