A caravan enforcement appeal near Lancaster has failed after the Inspector rejected the case that the land was already being used as a residential Traveller site.
Instead, the evidence showed that the caravans on land north of Bottomdale Road, Halton, were being stored at the critical date. That factual finding shaped the rest of the enforcement appeal.
Caravan enforcement appeal turns on storage use
Lancaster City Council served its enforcement notice on 30th April 2026. The notice referred to the siting of caravans and engineering works involving changes to land levels, but its requirements included ceasing the storage of caravans and removing them from the site.
Inspector Grahame J Kean found that the notice should be corrected so that the material change of use allegation expressly referred to the storage of caravans.
That was not just drafting housekeeping. The appellants’ case was that the land had been used as a three-pitch residential caravan site for Gypsies and Travellers, while the council maintained that the caravans were being stored.
The Inspector treated storage and residential occupation as materially different uses.
Residential occupation was not established
At the site visit there were three touring caravans, but the Inspector found no sign that they were being lived in. There was a washing line, but no domestic paraphernalia, utensils or bedding indicating residential occupation.
The council’s evidence showed two caravans arriving in March, with a third present by early April. Photographs did not show belongings or other signs of occupation.
The appellants relied on their own evidence of residential use, but much of it related to periods after the notice was served. Evidence around the critical date was either limited or showed only brief, intermittent occupation.
The Inspector concluded that the caravans had been stored on the land for a considerable period and that any residential occupation around the relevant time was too sporadic to change the character of that storage use.
Deemed application could not become a different caravan use
Once the notice was corrected, the ground (a) deemed planning application concerned the storage use alleged in the notice. Both sides accepted that it could not simply be transformed into an application for the materially different residential caravan-site use the appellants wanted.
The site was also in the Green Belt. The appellants argued that it should benefit from treatment as previously developed land, relying in part on development that had itself been unauthorised.
The Inspector rejected that route. Development that had never been lawful could not be used to turn the land into previously developed land for the purpose of the Green Belt argument.
The linked appeals, references APP/A2335/C/26/3378663, APP/A2335/C/26/3378664 and APP/A2335/C/26/3378665, were dismissed on 23rd September 2026. The corrected enforcement notice was upheld and the deemed planning application refused.
The decision is primarily a factual one about what the land was actually being used for. The Green Belt point followed from that evidence rather than replacing it.
Planning Geek’s enforcement notice guide explains the appeal framework, while our caravan planning guide covers when caravan uses may require planning permission. You can read the locally hosted appeal decision or view the Planning Inspectorate case record.
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