Arun District Council, R (on the application of) v First Secretary of State & Anor

A planning permission must be read as a whole. Related conditions should be read together where that gives them a clear and sensible meaning.

Under section 171B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, the four-year limit in subsection (2) applies to enforcement for the breach consisting of an unauthorised change of use to a single dwelling-house. It does not impose a four-year limit on enforcement for a separate breach of condition merely because the breaches are connected. Enforcement for that breach falls within the ten-year period in subsection (3).

Arun District Council appealed under section 289 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 against an Inspector’s decision dated 8 December 2004. The Inspector had allowed Karen Brown’s appeal against an enforcement notice concerning an extension at 8 Ceres Place.

The permission authorised an extension to provide accommodation for a dependent relative. Conditions 4 and 5 restricted occupation and required the extension, after Mrs J Brown’s vacation, to remain incidental to the main dwelling-house. The Inspector held condition 5 invalid and unenforceable because the word “vacation” was meaningless, and held that enforcement was out of time under section 171B(2).

The issues were whether the condition could be interpreted in context and whether enforcement for breach of that condition was subject to the four-year or ten-year limitation period.

1. The appeal succeeded and the Inspector’s decision was quashed. The court held that a planning permission and its conditions must be read as a whole, with regard to their surrounding context. Conditions should not be read in unnatural isolation where related conditions together make their meaning clear. This approach was supported by R v Hartlepool Borough Council and Able UK (2004 JPL 1088).

2. Condition 5 was valid and enforceable. Read with condition 4, the reference to vacation meant vacation by Mrs J Brown, who was identified in the preceding condition. The Inspector’s refusal to adopt that interpretation, because the condition was unclear when read alone, fell outside the range of reasonable interpretations open to her.

3. Section 55(3) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 confirms that using a building previously used as a single dwelling-house as two or more separate dwelling-houses involves a material change of use. Section 171A treats both unauthorised development and failure to comply with a planning condition as breaches of planning control.

4. The four-year period in section 171B(2) applies to enforcement action in respect of the breach consisting in the change of use of a building to use as a single dwelling-house. The words “no enforcement action may be taken” are to be understood as referring to that breach, and not to every connected breach. A separate breach of a valid condition prohibiting that use falls within section 171B(3), with its ten-year limitation period.

5. The court considered the tentative observations in Kings Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council v Secretary of State for the Environment ([1995] JPL 730), but reached its conclusion on the ordinary meaning and context of section 171B. The decisions in R v Tunbridge Wells Borough Council ex p Blue Boys Development Ltd ([1989] 59 P&CR 315) and Bloomfield v Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions ((1999) 2 PLR 79) were distinguishable because they involved no material change of use.

6. The enforcement notice was therefore served in time. The First Secretary of State was ordered to pay the Council’s costs, subject to detailed assessment if not agreed. Time for any notice of appeal was extended until 14 days after receipt of the transcript.

This was an appeal under section 289 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 against the Inspector’s decision dated 8 December 2004. The Inspector had allowed the appeal against the enforcement notice on the grounds that condition 5 was invalid and that enforcement was out of time.