Wealden Planning Oversight Committee and Trustees on Behalf of Mirage 2005 Sass Pension Trust v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government

On a challenge to a planning inspector’s enforcement decision, the Administrative Court will not intervene merely because the claimant disputes the inspector’s assessment of evidence, terminology or procedural choices. The inspector must act fairly, address the material issues, and give adequate reasons. An amendment correcting the enforcement period is permissible where the claimant’s case was in substance prepared on the correct period and no injustice results. Hearsay evidence may properly receive little weight where the primary witness was available but was not called. Permission to challenge the inspector’s decision was refused where no arguable error of law, procedural unfairness, inadequate reasoning or apparent bias was established.

The claimant brought two linked challenges arising from a planning inspector’s dismissal of appeals against an enforcement notice issued by Wealden District Council. The first was an application under section 289(6) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 for permission to appeal. The second was a Part 8 challenge under section 288 of that Act.

The claimant also sought disclosure of enforcement records and variation of an earlier costs order made after an adjournment. The central issues were whether the inspector had acted unfairly by refusing an adjournment, amending the enforcement period, allegedly failing to consider evidence, misstating the lawful use, giving inadequate reasons or displaying bias.

1. Disclosure. The application for disclosure of enforcement records was refused. The claimant had not adequately explained why the matter had not been pursued before the inquiry, and had produced no sufficient basis for concluding that the Council had deliberately withheld relevant information. The court was also not persuaded that the material would have fundamentally affected the inspector’s decision.
2. Procedural fairness and amendment. The inspector was entitled to refuse an adjournment sought to obtain speculative further evidence. The amendment of the enforcement notice from a four-year to a ten-year period caused no injustice because the claimant’s statement of case had proceeded on the basis of the ten-year period.
3. Assessment of evidence. The inspector was entitled to attach little weight to hearsay accounts concerning residential occupation, particularly where the principal witness was available to give evidence but did not do so. The inspector had carefully considered the evidence and gave intelligible reasons for finding that continuous mixed use for ten years had not been proved.
4. Merits of the challenge. References to the lawful use as an agricultural fish farm were, at most, slips of terminology and were not central to the reasoning. The inspector understood the planning status of the site, correctly addressed the proposed residential use, and was entitled to reach the conclusions reached on the enforcement grounds and the deemed planning application. No error of law, breach of natural justice, failure to give reasons or apparent bias was established.
5. Permission was refused in relation to both the section 288 and section 289 matters. The question of costs, including the earlier adjournment costs, was left for further submissions and determination.

The judgment describes the underlying planning inspector’s decision dismissing appeals against an enforcement notice. The Administrative Court refused permission for both statutory challenges. No citation for the inspector’s decision is stated in the judgment.