TC09599 - [2025] UKFTT 00918 (TC)

Mr Weavers is the sole proprietor of a business specialising in town and country planning applications and environmental issues. We found him to be a clear, credible and helpful witness. Mr Weavers explained that he was engaged to address matters by JJCE Ltd in December 2014. His role was to liaise with the County Council as the Local Planning Authority (LPA) and with the Environment Agency (EA) and to prepare and submit a retrospective planning application for consent for the works carried out to that date and for the subsequent works to completion and long-term rehabilitation of the land.

He advised that consent was unlikely to be forthcoming due to the fact that a ‘base line’ for the site had not been established before the waste disposal and was therefore now not possible to determine, and also that the application would generally require biodiversity surveys, and the site had been unable to be surveyed for its biodiversity because this was best done in the spring and summertime. Nevertheless, as the requested an application, this was submitted on 5 January 2015. It was validated (which confirmed that this was a matter that did require consent) by the LPA on 23 January 2015.

The planning application was refused on the 30 April 2015 and the reasons were, as expected insufficient assessment of biodiversity and ecology among other reasons.

Mr Weavers advised JJCE not to appeal, and he contacted the LPA and the EA to try and establish away forward. He did not find either of these authorities willing to engage. He did manage to organize a meeting in January 2016 involving himself, Mr Jones (Managing Director of JJCE) and representatives of LPA and the EA. It was agreed out that meeting that a survey of the site should be commissioned to establish whether great crested newts or other protected species were present and to recommend as a result the detail surrounding any scheme to that maybe necessary to preserve wildlife at the site.

JJCE commissioned the study which was undertaken by Just Mammals with the approval of the Local Planning Authority in the spring and early summer of 2016 and Just Mammals issued their report in late June 2016.

This report contains the following recommendation ‘due to this being a potential enforcement case making adequate recommendations at this point in the process is difficult. The best case scenario is for the ponds to be in reinstated in a similar form but at least partly protected from the grazing efforts of the livestock and allowed to become more vegetative in order to facilitate breeding efforts [of great crested newts]. Deeper sections, in order to avoid failed breeding efforts due to drying out are also desirable. Habitat enhancement can take place on a smaller scale than the removed ponds with quality habitat being favoured over quantity.’

Mr Weavers explained that he that he attempted regular contact with the LPA and the EA in 2016 and 2017 but he got no substantive responses. He said that throughout this period JJCE and the directors expressed their readiness to participate in and (subject to detail) fund the work involved in restoring the site

Mr Weavers was informally advised by the landowner that Crassula had been discovered on his land and this should not be removed from the site but should be buried in situ and at depth. He considered the discovery of the weed and the accepted method of treatment rendered any plan or attempt to remove waste from the site to be at best ill advised and at worst unlawful.

Mr Weavers explained that on the evening of 27 March 2018 the landowner called him and explained that he had received a letter from the LPA which had issued a notice that the recommendations set out in the Just Mammals report should be implemented and completed within one year. The landowner was upset as he now had an enforcement notice requiring him to do something which he had been told by another organisation was illegal.

Mr Weavers immediately contacted for LPA and wrote to them on 28 March 2018 explaining that the notice suggested a course of action that would have involved the landowner in unlawful activity and that it should be withdrawn in favour of constructive discussions leading to treatment of the weed and full remediation of the type that he had been pressing for since mid 2015. The LPA refused and Mr Weavers then agreed to act for the landowner in pursuing an appeal against enforcement.

This appeal was subject to considerable delays but on the final morning (21 August 2019) that statements were due the LPA notified the Inspectorate that they were withdrawing the enforcement notice and therefore the planned hearing had been cancelled and the appeal process closed. Mr Weavers lodged a request for an award of costs against that LPA which was accepted in full by the Secretary of State. The LPA paid the sums requested without further argument.