A garden enforcement appeal in Northumberland has removed a requirement to demolish two boundary fences, even though an Inspector upheld the underlying enforcement notice. A Hunter issued the decision on 5 November 2026, allowing part of the challenge under ground (f) but rejecting the request for more time to comply.
The dispute concerned land behind homes in Sycamore Grove, Prudhoe. Northumberland County Council said that a strip of land had been brought into use as an extended residential garden without planning permission, with paving and other garden features. Its notice demanded that the use stop, the paving and possessions be removed, and the east and west fences be taken down.
The garden enforcement appeal matters because the fences predated the unauthorised garden use and had been treated as separate operational development. Their removal would have gone beyond restoring the land to its previous condition. The decision also demonstrates why inaccurate or vague enforcement wording may be corrected without the whole notice falling away.
Why the garden enforcement appeal changed the notice
The paired appeals, APP/P2935/C/25/3368614 and APP/P2935/C/25/3368615, were brought by two appellants against a notice issued on 5 June 2025. The notice alleged a material change of use of land to extended residential curtilage, together with paving and associated landscaping. The Inspector dealt with grounds (f), concerning excessive requirements, and (g), concerning insufficient time.
The first problem was the allegation itself. Inspector Hunter said residential curtilage is not a use of land
, because it describes a relationship between land and a dwelling rather than a particular use. The parties nevertheless plainly understood the complaint to concern occupation of the land as a residential garden. The Inspector corrected that description, without finding injustice to either side.
The notice also referred to the removal of unspecified works associated with laying the paving and of personal items. Those directions were insufficiently precise for a recipient to know exactly what had to be cleared. The Inspector removed the unclear wording, but retained the substantive requirement to cease the garden use and remove the unauthorised paving and garden paraphernalia.
The garden enforcement appeal therefore shows that a notice can be substantially enforceable despite correctable errors. Sections 173 and 176 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 require careful attention to the breach being alleged, the steps needed to remedy it and whether correction would prejudice those affected.
Why the boundary fences could stay
The council required both eastern and western boundary fences to be removed. However, the appellants produced evidence that the previous owner had installed the eastern fence before the land was put to residential garden use. A neighbour said that the western fence also predated the paving and had previously been considered permitted development.
The council did not materially dispute that sequence. The Inspector observed that the fences appeared similar in height, design and materials, and concluded that their erection had been separate operational development which preceded the material change of use. Merely enclosing land did not prove that fencing had been constructed as an integral part of turning it into a garden.
The garden enforcement appeal turned on that timing. If the structures were already there before the unauthorised use began, removing them would change the land beyond its pre-breach condition. On the evidence, taking down either fence was not necessary to remedy the unlawful change of use, so requirement C was deleted.
This is a useful distinction from cases where operational works directly facilitate an unlawful use. The council relied on Murfitt v Secretary of State for the Environment and Somak Travel v Secretary of State for the Environment. The Inspector applied the relevant principle but found the factual link between the fences and the later garden use had not been established.
The later Court of Appeal discussion in Caldwell also underlines why the relationship between physical works and an unauthorised change of use requires proper evidence rather than an automatic assumption.
Ground (f) is different from ground (g)
The successful element was ground (f). That ground tests whether the specified steps exceed what is necessary to remedy the breach or the relevant injury to amenity. The Inspector accepted that the notice was aimed at remedying the breach itself. On that basis, the already existing fences did not have to be demolished.
The appellants separately sought a 52-week compliance period instead of the notice’s 12 weeks for the main remedial steps and 13 weeks for removal of resulting materials. They cited contractor availability and potentially adverse weather. No firm contractor lead times or other convincing evidence explained why those straightforward works required a year.
Inspector Hunter also noted that the paving, furniture and garden items had already been removed at the time of the site inspection. The Inspector was therefore not persuaded that the shorter timetable was unreasonable. The garden enforcement appeal failed on ground (g), and the original periods for the remaining requirements were not extended.
These are two quite different arguments. A landowner can succeed in having excessive steps deleted while still losing the appeal overall and remaining obliged to undo the unauthorised use. Planning Geek’s guide to enforcement appeal grounds explains the separate statutory tests.
What the Inspector corrected
The formal decision replaced the reference to residential curtilage with residential garden, tightened the paving-clearance requirement, and deleted the instruction to remove the two fences. It also adjusted the numbering of the requirements and compliance periods so the amended notice could be followed coherently.
On the evidence available, the Inspector declined to add demands for wider woodland reinstatement, new planting or the removal of other boundary fences. Such additions would have risked extending the alleged breach or making the notice more onerous without the evidential foundation needed to avoid injustice.
The garden enforcement appeal was accordingly dismissed in the formal sense, with the notice corrected, varied and upheld. That label must not obscure the limited but practical success on ground (f): the appellants were spared removal of structures which had not been shown to form part of the offending change of use.
An enforcement notice should always be read alongside its corrected appeal decision. Looking only at the original notice in this case would produce an inaccurate picture of the works actually required.
What other landowners and councils can learn
For landowners, date-stamped photographs, correspondence about permitted development, neighbours’ records and the physical sequence of works can be decisive. A fence erected before a later change of use is not automatically the same as a fence put up to make that use possible. Proof of chronology matters.
For councils, the garden enforcement appeal is a warning against vague phrases such as personal items or unspecified associated development. The notice needs a precise allegation and enforceable requirements. It cannot simply sweep up every structure present on land when the unauthorised activity is discovered.
The approach is fact-specific. A fence or hardstanding installed to support an unlawful change of use could still be caught by a properly worded notice. Nor does this ruling confer planning permission for a residential garden. It changes the steps required to put this particular breach right.
Read Planning Geek’s enforcement notices guide for the statutory process and the deadlines that determine whether there is still a right of appeal. The Inspector’s formal decision in the two Prudhoe appeals can be checked on the official Planning Inspectorate pages for appeal 3368614 and appeal 3368615. The appeal decision is also available on AppealBase.
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