Grendon v The First Secretary of State & Anor

Whether premises constitute a dwellinghouse for planning purposes is a question of fact and degree. The court must consider both the physical state and attributes of the premises and their actual, intended or attempted use. Occupation alone does not necessarily make a structure a dwellinghouse where its physical characteristics provide only marginal support for that conclusion. The statutory term must be construed in the context and purpose of the legislation in which it appears. A definition adopted for housing-security legislation cannot automatically be transferred to planning legislation. Where an inspector has properly considered the premises, their facilities and their use, the court will not interfere merely because another conclusion was possible.

The claimant applied under section 191 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 for a lawful development certificate for use of a small one-room building as a single dwellinghouse. The local planning authority refused the certificate. An inspector dismissed the claimant’s appeal under section 195.

The building had been occupied by the claimant, but lacked running water, a toilet and conventional windows. An adjoining converted lorry had also formed part of the claimant’s living arrangements. The claimant challenged the inspector’s decision under section 288, arguing that the inspector had applied the wrong legal test and had failed to follow Uratemp Ventures Ltd v Collins [2001] UKHL 43.

1. Claim dismissed. The inspector had directed himself correctly and was entitled to conclude that the building was not a dwellinghouse.
2. The question under section 171B(2) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 is one of fact and degree. The decision-maker must consider, to an appropriate degree in each case, both the physical state and attributes of the premises and their actual, intended or attempted use.
3. The approach in Gravesham BC v Secretary of State for the Environment (1982) 47 P & CR 142, approved in Moore v Secretary of State [1998] JPL 877, recognised that the ordinary characteristics of a dwellinghouse include facilities for day-to-day private domestic existence. However, user may be of marginal relevance where the physical structure falls materially short of a dwellinghouse. A building cannot necessarily be converted into a dwellinghouse merely because someone places furniture in it and lives there.
4. Uratemp Ventures Ltd v Collins concerned a different statutory context and purpose. Its treatment of a dwelling as a tenant’s home under the Housing Act 1988 did not establish a universal definition applicable to planning legislation. The relevant planning legislation concerns land use and competing private and public interests.
5. The inspector had considered the claimant’s permanent occupation and the basic facilities supporting his lifestyle, but was entitled to give greater weight to the building’s lack of running water, toilet and proper windows, its small single-room form, and the fact that it had not been constructed as a house. His consideration of the converted lorry reinforced, rather than undermined, the conclusion that the building itself lacked the physical attributes of a dwellinghouse.
6. It was therefore unnecessary for the inspector to resolve the precise period of occupation. The claimant had not established a change of use to use as a single dwellinghouse.

The judgment does not state any prior appellate history. The claim was brought under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 against the inspector’s decision dismissing the claimant’s appeal under section 195.