- Deadline
- Before the date the notice takes effect, usually 28 days after it is served
- Grounds
- (a) to (g) under section 174 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990
- Effect of appealing
- The notice is suspended until the appeal is decided
- Fee
- A deemed application fee is payable if ground (a) is pleaded
- Our fee
- Fixed, £500 to £1,000 for straightforward cases
What to do first
Read the date the notice takes effect, and work back from it. Everything else is secondary. If you are close to it, lodge the appeal on the grounds available and refine the case afterwards; the Planning Inspectorate allows the full statement to follow, but it cannot extend the deadline to appeal.
The seven grounds
Section 174 sets out the grounds, and you can plead more than one. They are pleaded together and argued in the alternative.
- Ground (a) — planning permission ought to be granted. This is a planning merits argument and it carries a deemed application, so a fee is payable. It is the ground that turns an enforcement appeal into an application for permission.
- Ground (b) — the matters alleged have not occurred. A factual challenge.
- Ground (c) — the matters do not constitute a breach of planning control. Permitted development, or not development at all.
- Ground (d) — the time for enforcement has expired. The immunity argument.
- Ground (e) — the notice was not properly served.
- Ground (f) — the requirements exceed what is necessary to remedy the breach. Very often the most useful ground in practice: not a fight about whether you can keep it, but about how much has to come down.
- Ground (g) — the compliance period is too short. Modest, but frequently granted, and it buys time.
People plead ground (a) alone, lose on the merits, and are left with the notice as drafted. Pleading (f) and (g) alongside means that even an unsuccessful merits argument can leave you with a reduced requirement and a longer period to do it in. There is no penalty for pleading grounds that fail, provided they are arguable.
The time limits changed in 2024
The Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023 replaced the four year rule with a single ten year rule for breaches of planning control in England, in force from 25 April 2024.
- Breaches substantially completed before 25 April 2024: the old rules still apply. Four years for operational development and for change of use to a single dwellinghouse; ten years for other changes of use and breaches of condition.
- Breaches on or after 25 April 2024: ten years for everything.
For a ground (d) appeal, the entire case is the evidence of when the breach occurred and that it has continued without interruption. See lawful development certificates for what that evidence looks like.
Before a notice is served
If you have had a letter from an enforcement officer rather than a formal notice, you are in a much better position than you will be in a month's time. At that stage the options include a retrospective application, a lawful development certificate if the time limits have run, or negotiated amendment. Councils generally prefer to resolve a breach than to serve a notice and defend an appeal. The time to get advice is now, not after the notice arrives.
What we do
- Check the notice for defects in drafting and service, which are commoner than you would think
- Identify every ground available and plead them together
- Build the evidence for immunity where ground (d) is arguable
- Prepare the statement of case and the merits argument under ground (a)
- Argue down excessive requirements under ground (f) and secure a workable compliance period under ground (g)
- Make a costs application where the Council has acted unreasonably