[2024] UKUT 180 (LC)

The requirement for the pitch fee review notice in paragraph 17(2) of Schedule 1 Chapter 2 to the 1983 Act is that it must set out the owner’s proposals for the new pitch fee. As a notice sent by the owner to the occupier it must also comply with paragraph 26(3) of the Schedule and give a name and address for the owner. The FTT in its rule 9 notice expressed the view that because the pitch fee review notice did not stand alone as a separate document, it had not met the statutory requirements, despite the fact that it incorporated the form which contained all the material required for the notice.

Mr Sunderland for the appellant argued that by incorporating the form within the notice it has met the requirements for the notice, since both the proposals for the new fee and the owner’s name and address are stated there.

The FTT explained that the requirement for a pitch fee review notice was added to the 1983 Act by amendment in 1983; the pitch fee review form was a later addition by further amendment in 2013. Accordingly the FTT said at its paragraph 70:

Therefore, the FTT concluded, in light of their having been introduced at different times and for different reasons, these documents must be separate documents.

I do not agree that the two documents have different purposes; both are to regulate the process of reviewing the pitch fee and, as part of that process, to provide the information the occupier needs. Even if the two documents did have different purposes I do not see why they would have to be on two separate pieces of paper and why information has to be duplicated. There is no authority on this point, although there are conflicting decisions of the FTT, and the Tribunal noted that the two documents had been combined, in the same way as they are here, in Wyldecrest Parks (Management) Limited v Truzzi-Franconi [2023]UKUT 42 (LC) without objection.

The FTT suggested that the fact that here was a mistake in the pitch fee review form in Truzzi-Franconi highlights the need for a separate pitch fee review notice. I do not understand that; there is no requirement for the notice to state the review date.

In my judgment the use of a combined pitch fee review notice and pitch fee review form was not wrong, because the material required to be included in the pitch fee review form was included in the combined document. To find otherwise would be to require duplication. If a site owner wants to send two separate documents, or for example to use a covering letter as the pitch fee review notice, that is of course equally acceptable.