Staffordshire County Council v Challinor

A certificate of lawful use issued under section 191 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 conclusively establishes the lawfulness of the certified use. A later enforcement notice cannot render those certified operations unlawful. The certificate must be construed according to its wording and context, including activities necessarily incidental to the permitted use. Here, storage, distribution and general trading of materials recovered from demolition and construction sites included bringing materials to the site, removing them, loading and unloading, and moving them within the certified area. It did not include processing or sorting. Direct action under section 178 was therefore limited to breaches outside the certificate’s scope. A claim for recovery of expenses failed where the authority could not distinguish recoverable work from work undertaken unlawfully or outside the enforcement notice. A permanent injunction under section 187B was refused as disproportionate.

Staffordshire County Council claimed £243,685.12 from the defendants under section 178(1)(b) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 for expenses incurred during direct action at land at Within Lane. It also sought a permanent injunction against the first defendant under section 187B.

The Council relied on an enforcement notice issued in 1997 and amended following an unsuccessful appeal. Part of the land was subject to a 1994 certificate of lawful use issued under section 191. The defendants disputed the validity and service of the enforcement notice, contended that the relevant activities fell within the certificate, challenged the Council’s entitlement to take direct action and disputed the reasonableness of the costs. The second defendant also raised Convention-rights arguments.

The central questions were the interaction between the certificate and enforcement notice, the scope of the certified use, the Council’s entitlement to act directly, the recoverability of its costs and whether injunctive relief was just and proportionate.

1. Validity and service. The enforcement notice was validly prepared and served. The first defendant’s father had appealed against it, and the validity issue could not subsequently be reopened in these proceedings.
2. Certificate and enforcement notice. The 1994 certificate, issued under section 191, conclusively presumed the lawfulness of the certified operations. Section 285 did not override that statutory effect. The certificate was a conclusive answer to the later enforcement notice so far as the certified operations were concerned. Activities within the certificate’s scope were not breaches of the enforcement notice.
3. Scope of the certified use. The phrase “materials recovered from demolition and construction sites for recycling” bore its ordinary meaning. It did not require materials to have been sorted or processed before delivery. The permitted activities were storage, distribution and general trading, together with activities necessarily incidental to them, including importation, removal, loading, unloading and movement within the certified area. Processing, screening, treatment and sorting were outside the certificate’s scope. The construction adopted by Mitting J applied from the date of the certificate, although his judgment was delivered after the direct action.
4. Direct action and costs. The Council could act only in relation to activities within the enforcement-notice area that were outside the certified area or outside the certificate’s scope. It proved some breaches but could not distinguish the costs of lawful and unlawful operations. The claim for the direct-action expenses therefore failed. The court nevertheless assessed that, if the Council had been entitled to act across the whole site, reasonable expenses would have been £179,035.94.
5. Human rights and injunction. The second defendant established no breach of Articles 6, 8 or 14, or Article 1 of Protocol 1. The Wednesbury test was irrelevant to the claim. Applying the requirement that relief under section 187B be just and proportionate, the limited post-action breaches, the Council’s own earlier understanding of the certificate and the absence of significant proven defiance meant that a permanent injunction should not be granted.

The money claim and injunction claim were dismissed.