A Barnham enforcement appeal has spared two movable livestock shelters from removal, but left most of an enforcement notice against a West Sussex field in force. An Inspector distinguished agricultural structures that were not operational development from vehicle storage, imported rubble, electricity points and a streetlamp that remained subject to planning control.
Inspector L Douglas issued the decision on 2 November 2026 following a site visit on 15 October. The appeal concerned land at Highground Lane, Barnham, near Bognor Regis, and Arun District Council’s notice dated 10 October 2024. Although the appeal succeeded on two specific grounds, the notice was corrected and varied rather than quashed.
The Barnham enforcement appeal is an important reminder that a structure’s ability to move, the evidence about a site’s history and the practicalities of removing development are separate questions. The Inspector agreed the large shelters could remain, but extended the time to complete the outstanding removal work from three months to six.
Why the Barnham enforcement appeal arose
The Council’s notice alleged six distinct breaches: changing agricultural land to vehicle storage, importing waste material to raise ground levels and create a track or hardstanding, erecting shed structures, installing electrical power points, forming bale screening bunds and putting up a streetlamp. Its requirements included removing vehicles unrelated to agriculture and reinstating land levels.
The appellant, Albert Brazil, challenged the notice under grounds (b), (c), (d) and (g) of section 174(2) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Those grounds respectively test whether the allegations happened, whether they amount to breaches of planning control, whether enforcement was out of time and whether the period for compliance is too short.
For readers facing a similar notice, Planning Geek’s guide to enforcement notices and appeal grounds explains why it matters to separate these arguments. Winning on the length of the compliance period is not the same as establishing that the development itself was lawful.
The appellant also questioned the notice’s wording and suggested that it was invalid. The Inspector found the alleged breaches and required steps sufficiently clear to allow correction under section 176, without causing injustice. The challenge did not establish that the whole notice was a nullity.
Movable shelters and the building test
The two disputed livestock shelters were substantial, with pitched roofs, metal bases, skids and towing points. The Inspector noted that they had recently been moved and could be shifted around the land. They lacked foundations, fixed floors and other signs of permanent physical attachment, despite having had electrical fittings and guttering.
Applying the familiar questions of size, permanence and physical attachment, the Inspector considered the Court of Appeal decision in Skerritts of Nottingham. The Inspector described the shelters as temporary moveable structures which are not fixed to the ground
. Their placing on the land was therefore not operational development of the kind alleged in the notice.
The Inspector also considered their use. On the evidence, the shelters provided cover for animals and were used for agricultural purposes, so the allegation relating to their erection did not stand. The Council’s attempt to require their removal was deleted from the enforcement notice. That is a finding on these structures and these facts, not a blanket permission for field shelters.
The Barnham enforcement appeal makes the distinction particularly useful for farmers and equestrian operators. A shelter sold as mobile is not automatically exempt from planning control: its physical characteristics and actual use matter. Planning Geek examines the practical distinction in its mobile field shelters guidance.
Vehicle storage and imported rubble stayed in the notice
The appellant argued that the field was not being used for vehicle storage when the notice was issued, and that agriculture had remained a main activity. The Inspector said the relevant question on ground (b) was whether the material change of use had occurred before the notice was issued, not whether vehicles happened to be present on that particular day.
The Barnham enforcement appeal also turned on the origin and nature of the hardstanding. The Inspector found that clean building rubble had been placed to create a raised track. In the Inspector’s view, it was a waste product even though the material had been processed, sorted and purchased by the appellant for reuse.
The substantial raising of levels and formation of hardstanding amounted to engineering operations. The electrical installations likewise required planning permission. The Inspector also found the streetlamp was development and rejected the suggestion that unspecified permitted development rights authorised it. No qualifying provision of the General Permitted Development Order had been identified.
The appellant’s ground (d) case about enforcement time limits also failed. A 2023 photograph showed part of the sub-base, but earlier aerial photographs from September 2019 and April 2015 gave no indication of any hardstanding in the relevant areas. The Inspector found insufficient precise evidence that the relevant operations were substantially complete long enough before the October 2024 notice.
Flooding justifies more time to comply
Although most substantive arguments failed, the Inspector accepted the appeal under ground (g) concerning the compliance period. The site is in Flood Zone 3 and photographs showed significant flooding. Machinery would be needed to remove material, and carrying out that work during the winter posed practical difficulties.
The Inspector wrote that the removal work was likely to be far more time consuming than the installation works were
. The compliance period was therefore increased from three months to six months. The finding concerned what was reasonable on this particular site, not a general six-month entitlement whenever an enforcement notice involves earthworks.
For anyone dealing with a similar Barnham enforcement appeal issue, the lesson is to provide specific evidence of conditions affecting the work programme. Flood conditions and the type of machinery required helped secure more time here, even though they did not undo the Inspector’s conclusions about the remaining breaches.
Exactly what the Inspector changed
The formal decision deleted the allegation about the erection of the shed structures and removed the corresponding requirement to take them away. It also clarified that the screening structures were wrapped bales of hay. The Inspector recorded that those bales had already gone by the site visit, so the relevant removal step had been complied with.
Crucially, the Barnham enforcement appeal did not result in retrospective planning permission for the vehicle storage, hardstanding, electrical works or streetlamp. Those parts of the corrected notice remained in force. The six-month compliance period replaces the original three-month period, subject to the timing of the notice taking effect.
The remaining question for the Council is whether any different future use of the livestock shelters would raise a separate planning issue. The Inspector expressly left that possibility open. An appeal determining the status of movable shelters on the evidence before it does not settle every possible future activity at the site.
The decision and wider significance
The original Planning Inspectorate decision is APP/C3810/C/24/3354985, issued on 2 November 2026. The appeal decision is also available on AppealBase. The short quotations above are taken from the Inspector’s decision, published as Planning Inspectorate material under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
The practical outcome is narrow but important. The Barnham enforcement appeal shows why a notice containing several allegations must be assessed one element at a time. Some structures can fall outside operational development even where related uses and engineering works plainly need permission; separately, compelling site-specific evidence can affect the period allowed for compliance.
0 Comments