Gypsy buying plot of land in area of great landscape value – Gypsy living in caravan on land – Planning authority issuing enforcement notice requiring removal of caravan from land – Whether authority having regard to compassionate considerations as to effect of eviction – Circular 18/94 – Application dismissed
In 1994 the applicant, a gypsy, bought a plot of land near Bodmin, Cornwall, in an area designated to be both of great landscape value and great scientific value. In June 1995 the council issued an enforcement notice, subsequently upheld on appeal, requiring removal of a caravan placed on the site. While the appeal was in progress the applicant took up residence in the caravan together with his wife, who was pregnant, and their seven children, six of whom were attending local schools. In February 1996 the council, which had become aware of the new circumstances and had advised the applicant accordingly, issued a revised enforcement notice giving him six months as from April 17 1996 in which to find alternative accommodation. The council had not provided gypsy sites in their area, nor was such provision allowed for in the local development plan. Applying for judicial review, the applicant challenged the notice largely on the ground that the council had paid little or no regard to Circular 18/94 which, with regard to the eviction of gypsies and other unauthorised campers, required local authorities to act in an humane and compassionate manner. In addition to their statutory obligations under the Children Act 1989 and Part III of the Housing Act 1985 (homelessness), to have in mind the possible effects of such eviction on schooling arrangements and the need, especially where pregnant women and newly-born children were involved, to liaise with health and welfare agencies.
Held The application was dismissed.
1. The circular relied on by the applicant, being expressly directed to the summary and quasi-penal power given by sections 77 to 80 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 to evict certain classes of unlawful occupants, could not bear directly on the council’s discretionary exercise of their enforcement powers under section 172 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. However, and notwithstanding the well established rule that personal circumstances could seldom amount to material considerations for planning purposes, questions of common humanity could not be excluded when a planning authority had to decide whether it was “expedient” to issue an enforcement notice: see per Sedley J in R v Lincolnshire County Council, ex parte Atkinson [1995] EGCS 145, which concerned the 1994 Act; and per Latham J in R v Kerrier, ex parte Uzell (1996) JPL 837. Nevertheless it was clear from the terms of the notice and a letter sent to the applicant beforehand that the council had not excluded family circumstances from their deliberations.
2. Moreover the council could not be faulted for acting in ignorance of certain matters relating to the health of the applicant’s wife, and to certain misfortunes suffered by the family at their last attempt to lead a non-nomadic life. Those matters had not been brought to their attention at the relevant time, and the council was not required to initiate their own inquiries.
3. Nor did the applicant derive any assistance from PPG 18, guidance on enforcement notices generally, as amplified by para 26 of Circular 1/94, special considerations applicable to gypsy sites, as that guidance was directed to encampments analogous to small unauthorised business sites where there was a possibility of reducing the harm, by relocation or otherwise, to an acceptable level.
David Watkins (instructed by Jean Gould, solicitor for the Public Law Project) appeared for the applicant; Katie Astaniotis (instructed by the solicitor to Restormel Borough Council) appeared for the respondents.
