The land owner had received planning consent to erect a barn. Instead he constructed a house, but disguised it.
Held: The appeal succeeded. Once the house had been used as such for four years, the authority was obliged to issue the certificate of lawful use even though the house had been built under a deception. Upon completion, the house had no use. On occupation a change of use occurred under section 171B. Once the four-year time limit was found to apply, it displaced the ten-year time limit even if the situation could be analysed by another route as one to which the longer time limit also applied. Section 171B(2) applied on the basis that use as a dwelling house as from 9 August 2002 was a change of use either from the use permitted by the planning permission or from a period of ‘no use’ which the court identified as occurring between completion of the building and its residential occupation.
Mummery LJ expressed puzzlement at: ‘the total absence of argument from the council, or the Secretary of State, about the effect of Mr Beesley’s reprehensible conduct in obtaining planning permission by deception and in failing to implement it’ and ‘it is very difficult to believe that Parliament could have intended that the certificate procedure in section 191 should be available to someone who has dishonestly undermined the legislation by obtaining a planning permission which would never have been granted if the council had been told the truth’.
Judges:
Lord Justice Pill, Lord Justice Mummery and Lord Justice Richards
Citations:
Times 09-Feb-2010, [2010] EWCA Civ 26, [2010] PTSR 1296, [2010] 5 EG 113, [2010] NPC 10
Links:
Statutes:
Town and Country Planning Act 1990 171B(1)
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Welwyn Hatfield Council, Regina (On the Application of) v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and Another Admn 7-Apr-2009
The council appealed against the decision of the inspector that the land-owner should be granted a certificate of lawful development.
Held: Collins J over-turned the inspector’s decision. He viewed the building as the permitted barn, but went . .
Cited by:
Appeal from – Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and Another v Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council SC 6-Apr-2011
The land-owner had planning permission to erect a barn, conditional on its use for agricultural purposes. He built inside it a house and lived there from 2002. In 2006. He then applied for a certificate of lawful use. The inspector allowed it, and . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Planning
Updated: 13 August 2022; Ref: scu.396409
