[2024] UKUT 384 (LC)

Mr Chalenor, the applicant’s director, gave evidence in which he explained the current use of the House, which will continue if the application is successful. He explained that he had lived in the House during the initial short tenancy from Mr Russell and had carried out redecoration and refurbishment works to make it suitable for the new residents.

The House obtained OFSTED registration in August 2023 for the provision of care for up to two children aged between 7 and 18 years old and has been operating in that way since shortly after becoming registered. It was the first home opened by the applicant, which at the time was a newly founded care provider run by Mr Chalenor and Mrs Irene Merriman, who between them have 35 years’ experience in the management of children’s care services.

The House is intended to provide a home for up to two young people with learning difficulties. Each child has their own bedroom (the two larger bedrooms) and uses the ground floor living space and garden as they would be used in any family home, eating together and sharing activities. While they are at home the children are looked after by two teams each of two trained carers. The carers live in, sleeping over on 48 hour shifts with shift changes taking place at around 8 o’clock every other morning. Care is provided in a communal environment and the children and carers share the House as a family would.

The children’s carers do not reside permanently in the House and are there only during their 48 hour shifts, which overlap by about 15 minutes to allow incoming staff to be updated on the events of the previous two days. Mr Chalenor said that this pattern means that the occasions when carers are arriving and leaving by car are confined to a regular morning window, although they come and go at other times as the activities of the day dictate.

During the day the staff team accompany the children to school and to any medical or other appointments that may be arranged. Visits to the House by the children’s friends or families are infrequent, but the children do return to their own family homes from time to time for visits, and also visit their friends. Mr Chalenor visits the House regularly and Mrs Merriman, who is responsible for administration and staff supervision, visits one or other of the applicant’s care homes on most weekdays. The only other people who visit the House regularly are the children’s social workers, who see each child not less frequently than once every six weeks, and local authority officials with functions under the Care Act 2014 whom Mr Chalenor referred to as “regulation officers”, who inspect the home once a month.

There is no office or other segregated business space in the House. The applicant’s business is run from elsewhere and within the House record keeping and planning of activities by carers is done using laptops.

Mr Chalenor has a parking arrangement with a local cricket club a few minutes’ walk from the Close and explained that when he visits the House he parks there and encourages other visitors to do the same. He was aware of one occasion when one of the children became upset following the death of a pet, when five vehicles (including his own and Mrs Merriman’s) were parked for a short time in the Close. These did not obstruct neighbouring driveways but when one neighbour contacted Mr Russell to complain, he alerted Mr Chalenor who quickly arranged for the vehicles not parked on the drive to be relocated. He had not personally received complaints from neighbours, all of whom had his phone number, nor had any been reported to him.

The use of the House which we have described is lawful in planning terms. In March 2023, several months before the use commenced, Mr Chalenor obtained a certificate from Lichfield District Council under sections 191 and 192, Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 2015, confirming that the use of the House as a care home for up to two children was a lawful use within use class C2 (which covers the provision of residential accommodation and care to people in need of care). No planning permission was required for the change from use as a dwellinghouse within class C3 to use as a care home within class C2.