Occupier being granted established use certificates – Council issuing enforcement notices – Council applying for injunctive relief to restrain occupier from further breaches of enforcement notices – Whether court entitled to look at established use certificates to ascertain what was permitted – Application allowed
The defendant owned and occupied a site situated at, and known as, Drakeswell Garage, Duck End, Stebbing, Essex, which was about one and a half miles north of the village of Stebbing, and was in a very rural area. The defendant carried on a scrapyard/salvage operation. The site also contained a commercial garage. In 1986 the planning authority, the plaintiffs, considered a breach of a planning control, consisting of the storage of vehicles, was taking place on part of the site and issued an enforcement notice. The notice was quashed on appeal because it was decided that the use complained of had begun prior to January 1 1964 and, accordingly, section 88(2)(e) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 applied. On May 18 1987 the defendant applied for an established use certificate (EUC) in respect of the land, which was granted on July 27 1987. On August 10 1987 the defendant applied for a second EUC over another part of this site, which was granted on November 4 1987. On July 12 and 19 1988 two enforcement notices were issued. The defendant’s appeal was successful only to the extent that the notices were slightly amended by the Secretary of State for the Environment.
The plaintiffs proceeded to prosecute the defendant. However, the summons was dismissed. The council then claimed injunctive relief, pursuant to section 187B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and section 22 of the Local Government Act 1972, to restrain the defendant from further breaches of the enforcement notices. The plaintiff claimed that the defendant had been carrying on the business on a part of the site which he was not entitled to, and that he had not complied with an obligation to do certain works on part of the site. It was submitted that the enforcement notices were clear, the areas covered by them were clearly ascertainable on the land, and it could be seen that the defendant was in clear breach of the provision of the enforcement notice and should be restrained from further breaches. The defendant contended that he was entitled to carry on his scrapyard business within the areas of the two EUCs, since his activities were provided for in the EUCs, and therefore he could not be in breach of the enforcement notices.
Held The application for injunctive relief was allowed.
1. The court was concerned with the enforcement notices, and the plans attached thereto, and was not entitled to go behind them and have regard to what was granted by the EUC certificates. That would effectively reopen the appeal against the enforcement notices. That was the case notwithstanding that the point, namely that the effect of the enforcement notice had been in effect to “steal” from the defendant rights which had previously been given by an EUC, had not been taken at the appeal and the time for appeal had expired.
2. In any event, even if the defendant was entitled to go behind the enforcement notices he had failed to show that the land which he claimed the EUC plans justified him in occupying was the same land as that granted by the EUCs. It bore no relationship to the shape of the land subject to the EUCs.
Gregory Stone QC (instructed by Sharpe Pritchard, London agents for the solicitor to Uttlesford District Council) appeared for the plaintiffs; Graeme Sampson (instructed by Wynter Davies & Lee, of Hertford) appeared for the defendant.