A farmer who was ordered by Maidstone Borough Council to tear down a partially completed home he had erected without planning permission succeeded in his attempt to set aside the order.
Smallholder Alan Sage bought Holly Farm, Holly Farm Road, Otham, in 1986 and began to grow grass, fruit and cobnuts.
Two years later, he constructed a building using demolition salvage materials, which Deputy Judge Duncan Ouseley QC described as a “partially erected dwelling-house”.
However, in March 1999, Maidstone Borough Council issued an enforcement notice against Mr Sage, requiring him to raze the building to the ground. That order was later backed by the DETR; an appeal by Mr Sage was dismissed.
The judge overturned the inspector’s decision and ordered a reconsideration of the case.
The DETR must now reconsider whether the building was already substantially completed more than four years prior to the enforcement notice, in which case the building would be immune from action by the council.
The court heard that the building is constructed of concrete-block walls and a timber-framed roof, which is clad with peg tiles and timber weatherboarding.
Following numerous attacks by vandals, a new roof and structural timbers were added, and the glazing has had to be replaced several times.
In 1998, the site was inspected by the council in connection with an application for planning consent to change the use of the building for the provision of tourist accommodation. The application was refused, and the enforcement notice was issued in March 1999.
The judge accepted arguments that internal finishes were irrelevant to that issue and that substantial completion did not necessarily mean that the building had to be capable of occupation.
He ruled that the test was whether any further works were required that would constitute development within the meaning of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.
Allowing the appeal, he said that the inspector had applied the wrong test when ruling that the building had not been substantially completed four years before the council took enforcement action.
PLS News 13/10/00
