AC-2024-LON-002192 - [2025] EWHC 2815 (Admin)

The issue in Gregory and Rawlins was whether one enforcement notice issued in respect of a piece of land which is divided into small plots for occupation by caravans was a valid notice (Footnote: ¹), or whether the section required a separate notice for the owner and occupier of each plot of land. The appellants in that case sought to argue that the words “owner and occupier of the land” (in s.87(5)(a) of the 1971 Act) referred, as a matter of strict interpretation, to the piece of land of which each appellant was the owner or occupier, contending that an enforcement notice could not relate to an area greater than an individual ownership or occupation.

The Court of Appeal upheld the decision that one enforcement notice was valid. In doing so, the court held that it was not a matter of pure construction. Butler-Sloss LJ referred to “the existing long-established practice of issuing and serving enforcement notices on a planning unit”, holding that the question of what is the proper planning unit is essentially a matter of fact and degree.

The issue in this case is not precisely the same. I am concerned with interpretation of a different provision. The issue before me concerns the way in which an enforcement notice in respect of the whole planning unit (here, the Land) was required to be served on those occupying compounds within that unit. I am not concerned with the terms of the enforcement notice. Nevertheless, the context - in which the “limits of every plot were not clearly defined on the ground” - and the submissions which were rejected in Gregory and Rawlins are both strikingly resonant of the context and the appellant’s submissions in this case.

Section 329(2) has broad application to many notices and documents which are required or authorised to be served under the 1990 Act. The term “premises” is not defined and must be considered in context in each case. In my judgment, the permissible method of service should be read consistently with the provision which imposes the service requirement. In the context of service of an enforcement notice, the words “where the notice … is required … to be served on any person as an occupier of premises” relate back to, and have to be understood by reference to, the requirement imposed by s.172(2)(a) to serve the enforcement notice “on the occupier of the land to which it relates” (“it” being the notice).

In this enforcement context, at least ordinarily, the term “occupier of premises” will have the same meaning as “occupier of the land to which it relates” and the premises are the land to which the enforcement notice relates. In my judgment, the Inspector made no error in determining that the “premises” in this case were the appeal site.

I reject the contention that this interpretation undermines Parliament’s intention of ensuring that it is likely that the notice would come to the attention of the person who is required to be served. The requirement is for the notice to be affixed “conspicuously”. Contrary to the appellant’s submissions, that requirement would not have been met if it had been affixed to an object in an inconspicuous corner of the Land where occupiers would have been unlikely to see it, even if it would have been visible to a person who happened to stumble across that object. This hypothetical scenario did not arise. The Enforcement Notice was fixed to the entrance gates across the only means of access to the Land. There was no suggestion that the requirement to be affixed conspicuously was not met.

On the other hand, there is force in the Secretary of State’s contention that the appellant’s interpretation would frustrate Parliament’s intention to enable local planning authorities to take enforcement action. In a case such as this, the Council probably would have had to have applied to the magistrates’ court for a warrant to enable them to access the Land, as the appellant’s uncooperative conduct demonstrated that he would not have given them permission to enter for the purposes of serving enforcement notices. That would have taken time and increased the costs of pursuing such action. It was impossible for the Council to know the layout of the compounds on the ground, so there would have been little prospect of the Council being able to serve all of the occupiers it had been unable to serve by other methods by affixing the notice to an object on each of their compounds. It is not a sufficient answer that the Council might have been able to rely on s.176(5).

In his written submissions the appellant submitted that s.329(3) is an aid to interpretation of s.329(2), on the basis that the permission to affix a notice to some object “on the land” contrasts with the reference to “on those premises” in s.329(2)(b)(ii). Mr Whale did not pursue that submission orally and in my judgment, in light of the analysis above, it is of no assistance.

Accordingly, I dismiss the appeal on ground 1.