The District Council issued an established user certificate for a caravan on the appellants’ lands. The appellants then replaced the caravan with a ‘park home’ for which planning permission was refused and enforcement notices were issued by the council. This ‘park home’ had been delivered to the site in four prefabricated sections and then bolted together and placed on concrete blocks. It had no wheels or sub-frame.
Held: The ‘Park Home’ could only be moved after being dismantled. It could not be moved as a single unit and was not a caravan under the Act.
Russell LJ said: ‘In order to qualify for the description ‘caravan’ in section 29 it is therefore ‘the structure’ that has to possess two qualities. The first part of the section provides that it is necessary for ‘the structure’ to be designed or adapted for human habitation. This, in my view, clearly contemplates the structure as a whole, as a single unit, and not the component parts of it. The second quality which ‘the structure’ has to possess is mobility. The structure has to be capable of being moved by being towed or transported on a single motor vehicle or trailer. ‘The structure’ contemplated by the second part of the section is, in my judgment, precisely the same structure as that contemplated by the first part of the section, not a structure which has been dismantled before loading has taken place. In my view the second limb of the definition can therefore refer only to a whole single structure and not to component parts of it.’
Sir Stephen Brown P said that it was straining the language of the section to an unacceptable degree to seek to embrace in the definition, a structure which was prefabricated in as many as four separate sections: ‘In order to qualify for the description ‘caravan’ in section 29 it is therefore ‘the structure’ that has to possess two qualities. The first part of the section provides that it is necessary for ‘the structure’ to be designed or adapted for human habitation. This, in my view, clearly contemplates the structure as a whole, as a single unit, and not the component parts of it. The second quality which ‘the structure’ has to possess is mobility. The structure has to be capable of being moved by being towed or transported on a single motor vehicle or trailer. ‘The structure’ contemplated by the second part of the section is, in my judgment, precisely the same structure as that contemplated by the first part of the section, not a structure which has been dismantled before loading has taken place. In my view the second limb of the definition can therefore refer only to a whole single structure and not to component parts of it.’
Judges:
Russell LJ, Sir Stephen Brown P
Citations:
Times 06-Apr-1994, Ind Summary 04-Apr-1994, [1994] 1 WLR 1212
Statutes:
Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 29(1)
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Howard v Charlton CA 25-Jul-2002
The applicant had a mobile home with the benefit of protection under the Act. He built a permanent porch for the home. The land owner appealed refusal of an order to say that she had lost her rights under the Act. He argued that it had lost its . .
Cited – 57 Developments Ltd v Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland ChNI 9-Feb-2004
. .
Cited – Jones v Green CA 16-Dec-2005
The appellant challenged the decision to reverse grant of planning permission for the siting of caravans or mobile homes. . .
Cited – Brightlingsea Haven Ltd and Another v Morris and others QBD 30-Oct-2008
The caravan park operated under planning consents requiring the caravans to be occupied only during certain months. The defendants had bought their mobile homes from the claimants to occupy full time, and said that the claimants knew of this. The . .
Cited – Green, Regina (on the Application Of) v First Secretary of State and others Admn 13-Apr-2005
Appeal was made against the decision to allow and refuse changes of use on land for the siting of caravans and mobile homes. . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Planning
Updated: 28 April 2022; Ref: scu.78920