A Hagley traveller appeal has allowed five residential caravan pitches on Green Belt land near Stourbridge, despite earlier unauthorised works and concerns about heritage and highway access. Inspector M Madge granted planning permission on 2 November 2026 after finding the site fell within the revised national grey belt provisions. A related enforcement notice was varied and upheld, but no longer prevents the permitted residential use.
The case concerns land at Wassell Grove Lane in Bromsgrove district, where Patrick Donovan sought permission for five Traveller pitches, hardstanding and timber fencing. A separate appeal challenged a May 2026 enforcement notice alleging a mixed residential and equestrian use, together with operational works including surfacing, services and fencing. The decisions cannot be understood accurately by reporting either appeal in isolation.
The Hagley traveller appeal is significant because it applies the August 2026 national planning framework to a Traveller site, weighs a shortage of lawful pitches against heritage harm and explains the statutory relationship between a new permission and an existing enforcement notice. For landowners, councils and occupiers, the important outcome is permission for a defined scheme with conditions, not a blanket retrospective approval of everything on the land.
Why the Hagley traveller appeal succeeded
The site lies within designated Green Belt. The Inspector accepted that it constituted grey belt and that the proposed development would not fundamentally undermine the purposes of the remaining Green Belt. Bromsgrove Council could not demonstrate a five-year supply of specific deliverable Traveller sites, and the Inspector found that the relevant national criteria for a Traveller proposal were satisfied.
In the decision, Inspector Madge expressly stated that the appeal site constitutes grey belt land
. That finding is important, but it should not be reduced to the misleading suggestion that all Traveller pitches are automatically acceptable on grey belt. The Inspector also assessed access safety, the setting of a nearby listed building, environmental measures and the overall planning balance.
One key change concerned the relative weight of older local Green Belt policy. The Inspector considered that Bromsgrove policy BDP4(4) was materially inconsistent with the revised national framework because the newer policy allows additional forms of development to be treated as not inappropriate. This did not remove local-plan consideration, but it did change the legal and policy context for the Hagley traveller appeal.
Grey belt did not remove the highway tests
There were objections about visibility splays at Wassell Grove Lane and the lack of dedicated pedestrian facilities. The road is narrow, and the rural public rights-of-way network includes unlit routes which may not be usable comfortably in all seasons. The Inspector recognised those limitations rather than treating a countryside lane as equivalent to a well-served urban street.
On the submitted technical evidence, safe visibility could be achieved through access works, vegetation management and coordinated landscaping. The highway authority’s acceptance of the measured visibility splays was important. Conditions would ensure the works were undertaken and maintained, while arrangements for construction access and protection of retained trees also needed attention.
The national framework’s specific policy on Traveller-site location did not displace the separate need for safe and suitable access. The Hagley traveller appeal thus distinguishes the policy question of a viable location for Traveller accommodation from the engineering question of making a particular access safe. Both needed to be addressed before the scheme could succeed.
Unmet need outweighed heritage harm
The Inspector recognised harm to the significance of a nearby Grade II listed farmhouse through development in its setting, giving substantial weight to the asset’s conservation and considerable importance and weight to that harm. Other adverse matters included the possibility of intentional unauthorised development. Although the Inspector did not make a definitive finding about the applicant’s intentions, the planning balance was deliberately tested on the adverse assumption that substantial weight attached to that issue.
Even then, the provision of five settled pitches, in an area without a demonstrated five-year supply of deliverable Traveller sites, was considered sufficiently important to justify permission. The family’s circumstances, including access to healthcare and continuity of children’s education, supported the benefits of a stable base. The Inspector concluded that these matters outweighed the identified harms when considered cumulatively.
This is a specific planning balance, not a general release of Green Belt land for residential caravans. The Planning Geek guide to grey belt and Green Belt explains why the designation and the national policy tests must both be examined. Other sites may have different heritage constraints, transport evidence or unmet-need positions.
Why the enforcement notice was still upheld
The related enforcement appeal requires careful handling. The newly granted permission covers the residential caravan site, hardstanding and specified fencing, but not necessarily every part of the previously alleged mixed use or all operational works. The Inspector corrected and varied the enforcement notice to add precision and remove ambiguity, and the notice remains effective only so far as it is consistent with the new permission. The appellant’s appeal on ground (g), seeking more time for compliance, failed.
Section 180 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 was central. When planning permission is granted after an enforcement notice has been issued, the notice ceases to have effect to the extent that its requirements are inconsistent with the new permission. It is not automatically quashed in full. The Hagley traveller appeal therefore leaves an enforceable notice for elements that remain unlawful, while protecting the residential use now authorised.
The Inspector explained that the permission’s effect under section 180 arises when permission is granted, not only once the planning conditions are discharged. If a condition is later breached, that becomes a separate enforcement matter; it does not reinstate requirements displaced by the permission. This legal distinction matters wherever retrospective consent and existing enforcement action overlap.
Conditions and compliance still matter
The permission imposes conditions on the site’s layout, highway visibility, surfacing and drainage, landscape management, protection of trees and archaeology, and other matters requiring coordinated implementation. Some conditions address already-occupied land through staged submissions and defined compliance mechanisms. The Inspector distinguished those obligations from the surviving enforcement notice’s separate timetable.
Six months remained the compliance period for any requirements that survived the corrected notice. The Inspector took account of the family’s circumstances and Article 8 rights but did not consider a longer period justified. That outcome should not be confused with an order requiring the newly authorised residential pitches to be vacated.
The practical lesson from the Hagley traveller appeal is that a planning permission and an enforcement notice can both remain relevant to the same land. Checking the precise authorised development, the corrected notice wording and each condition is essential. The mere appearance of an upheld notice in a decision database does not mean the five residential pitches were refused or must be removed.
Inspector Madge allowed planning appeal 3378918 and varied and upheld enforcement appeal 3378991 on 2 November 2026. Both outcomes are recorded in the Inspector’s single combined decision letter. The short quotation above is reproduced from Planning Inspectorate material under the Open Government Licence v3.0. The appeal decision is also available on AppealBase.
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