Case No. UKUT-334-(LC)-UTLC-Case-Numbers:-LC-2022-88

34.The third ground of appeal is that Tallington Lakes is not a relevant protected site; if it is not, then the respondent is not entitled to charge a fee for the licence under section 5A of the 1960 Act. As I have set aside the FTT’s decision of 17 December 2021, I have to decide whether to remit the matter to the FTT for it to make a fresh decision after a hearing, or to substitute the Upper Tribunal’s decision on the third ground. Mr Morgan said at the start of the hearing that he wanted me to remit the matter, although he had set out his arguments about the third ground at length both in his skeleton argument and in a supplemental skeleton that he filed in response to Ms Wigley KC’s skeleton. She asked me to substitute the Tribunal’s own decision on this ground35.I explained to the parties at the hearing that I would hear the appeal on whether the site is a relevant protected site, if the Tribunal had sufficient material on which to hear it. I said that I took the view that the Tribunal had all the relevant material in front of it and that since both parties had set out their arguments on this ground in their skeleton arguments I could decide the appeal on this point. Mr Morgan agreed that I should proceed on that basis.The arguments about ground 3 in the grounds of appeal, the parties’ skeletons and at the hearing before lunch36.At the hearing of the appeal Mr Morgan and Ms Wigley KC presented their arguments about ground 3, following the lines they had taken in their pleadings. I set out those arguments before dealing under a separate head with a different argument presented by Mr Morgan in his closing submissions after lunch.37.It is worth reiterating the definition of a relevant protected site in section 5A of the 1960 Act:“land in respect of which a site licence is required under this Part, other than land in respect of which the relevant planning permission under Part 3 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 or the site licence is …—(a) expressed to be granted for holiday use only, or(b) otherwise so expressed or subject to such conditions that there are times of the year when no caravan may be stationed on the land for human habitation.”38.It is not in dispute that Tallington Lakes is land in respect of which a site licence is required, The respondent takes the view that neither the 2003 licence 84/2, nor the 2016 version 84/3, is expressed to be granted for holiday use only and neither imposes a restriction on the stationing of caravans for human habitation. The reference in licence 84/2 to static holiday caravans in the condition did not restrict the site to holiday use.39.Ms Wigley KC’s argument focused on whether the planning permissions for the site are expressed in the terms stipulated by section 5A(a) and (b). She took the singular “relevant planning permission” to include the plural since more than one permission is in force across the area covered by the licence, in accordance with section 6 of the Interpretation Act 1979 which provides that “words in the singular include the plural and words in the plural include the singular” unless the contrary intention appears. For the exception in section 5A to apply, Ms Wigley argued, all the planning permissions must be expressed as in section 5A(a) or (b).40.And so we come back to the 7 Permissions referred to in the 2003 and 2016 versions of the licence. Each licence, as I said above, lists seven planning permissions, and what they say is as follows:a.