Amber Valley Borough Council v Haytop Country Park Limited

A tribunal determining whether a caravan-site licence condition is unduly burdensome must not impose conditions which undermine settled planning enforcement constraints. Although conditions under section 5 of the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 cannot ordinarily be imposed for purely planning reasons, that principle does not permit the licensing regime to confer permitted development rights which compromise an extant enforcement notice.

The planning position should be resolved before licence conditions are formulated. A licence condition may be reconsidered after compliance with planning enforcement or agreement on a layout consistent with the applicable planning constraints.

Haytop Country Park Limited sought a new caravan-site licence for a park subject to historic planning permissions. It had carried out unauthorised engineering works, including re-profiling, hardstandings, a road and services. An operational-development enforcement notice requiring removal of those works had been upheld by a planning inspector and the High Court.

The Council issued a site licence limited to three pitches. On the operator’s appeal, the First-tier Tribunal held that the limitation was unduly burdensome and substituted a condition permitting 18 pitches. The Council appealed, contending that the substituted condition would confer permitted development rights for works which the enforcement notice required to be removed.

1. Appeal allowed. The First-tier Tribunal erred in substituting a condition permitting 18 pitches. Its decision was set aside.

2. Section 5 of the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 does not generally permit site-licence conditions imposed for purely planning reasons. That principle, illustrated by Babbage v North Norfolk District Council, did not govern this case. The relevant planning issues had already been conclusively determined through enforcement proceedings. The tribunal was not entitled to disregard those settled constraints by formulating a licence condition that undermined them.

3. The First-tier Tribunal correctly recognised that it lacked jurisdiction to determine planning merits. It should therefore also have recognised that its own decision could not disturb the planning baseline. The conditions it imposed would confer permitted development rights for hardstandings, roads and services which the enforcement notice required to be removed. That was both irrational and capable of amounting to an impermissible challenge to the enforceability of the notice under section 285 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

4. The statutory sequence requires the major planning issues to be resolved before licence conditions are formulated. Section 3(3) of the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 reflects that sequence by making planning permission a prerequisite to a site licence. The existence of historic permission for caravans did not authorise the respondent’s preferred modern engineering layout, whose planning consequences had been found harmful.

5. The Council’s three-pitch limitation was not unduly burdensome. It was no greater than necessary to reverse the established harm caused by the unauthorised works. However, three further pitches outside the enforcement area could properly be added.

6. The respondent’s First-tier Tribunal appeal should have been dismissed. The Council’s licence conditions were confirmed, subject to agreed minor variations and the addition of pitches 22, 23A and 24A.

• Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber): allowed the Council’s appeal and set aside the First-tier Tribunal’s decision.
• First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber): by a decision issued on 16 May 2023 and reissued in amended form on 6 July 2023, allowed the operator’s appeal against the licence conditions and substituted a condition permitting 18 pitches.