A Melton enforcement notice requiring a residential mobile home to be removed from agricultural land has been quashed because its defects were too fundamental for an Inspector to correct. Inspector A Berry issued the decision on 26th October 2026 concerning land near Old Dalby in Leicestershire.
The notice confused a caravan stationed for residential use with a dwellinghouse created by building operations, cited the wrong statutory provision and described the site inconsistently. It also left the recipient uncertain about the reasons for enforcement and exactly what they had to do to comply.
I think this Melton enforcement notice is worth reading for anyone serving or defending enforcement action. The result did not turn on whether residential use should be permitted on the land. The Inspector instead found that the notice failed a more basic test: a person receiving it must be able to understand precisely what breach is alleged and what is required.
What the Melton enforcement notice required
Melton Borough Council issued the notice on 20th August 2025 against land west of Longcliff Hill House, Longcliff Hill, Old Dalby. Its alleged breach concerned a residential mobile home on land formerly described as agricultural. The council characterised the arrangement as a change to Class C3 residential use involving a dwellinghouse.
The requirements were extensive. They included ceasing residential use, demolishing or removing the mobile home, clearing hardstanding and associated structures, restoring the land to agricultural use and reinstating a hedgerow. Different steps had compliance periods of three or four months from the notice taking effect.
The appeal by Beverley Gask was proceeding on grounds (f) and (g) of section 174(2) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. In general terms, those grounds deal with whether the required steps go beyond what is necessary and whether the time allowed for compliance is too short. Our guide to enforcement appeal grounds explains the separate statutory questions that can arise.
However, the Inspector never reached a determination on those grounds. She first examined the validity of the notice itself, applying the statutory power to correct or vary an enforcement notice only where no injustice would result.
The wrong statutory section and inconsistent address
The notice referred to section 171(1)(a) of the 1990 Act as its legal basis for a breach of planning control. That provision concerns a different part of the legislation dealing with blight. The appropriate provision for unauthorised development was section 171A(1)(a). The Inspector identified the error expressly.
There were also inconsistent descriptions of the land. One part of the notice referred to Longcliff Hill House, another to Longcliff House, and the plan used Longcliffe Hill House. A landowner reading the notice could not confidently establish which description was intended without resolving these inconsistencies.
Taken individually, a mistaken reference or spelling error can sometimes be corrected. The problem with the Melton enforcement notice was that these errors sat alongside more serious uncertainty about the very development alleged to be unlawful. The case illustrates why careful drafting must include the identity of the land as well as the legal character of the breach.
Why the mobile home allegation was uncertain
The notice said that stationing a residential mobile home had changed the land’s use from agriculture to residential use. It then described the resulting development as a change to a Class C3 dwellinghouse, saying that this category included residential mobile homes.
Those descriptions were not interchangeable for enforcement purposes. The Inspector could not tell whether the council alleged a material change of use involving the stationing of a caravan, or the construction of a building amounting to a dwellinghouse. The notice then required the mobile home either to be demolished or removed, reinforcing that uncertainty.
That distinction affects the type of development alleged, the remedy and the relevant evidence. A caravan can be stationed on land without necessarily becoming a building. Conversely, a residential building may involve operational development. Describing one as the other without explaining the legal allegation can make the scope of the notice impossible to determine.
The Melton enforcement notice therefore could not be saved by choosing whichever interpretation seemed more plausible. It was the issuing authority’s responsibility to identify the breach clearly in the notice itself. Readers considering related cases can start with our change of use guidance, while remembering that the legal status of a mobile home also depends on its physical characteristics and circumstances.
Why the compliance steps could not simply be repaired
The Inspector found that the council’s reasons for issuing the notice were also inadequate. The document cited local policies and referred to harm from a mobile home and removal of a mature hedge, but did not properly explain how the alleged residential use harmed the locality or how a removed hedgerow related to the alleged breach.
The notice also referred to an unauthorised driveway and parking spaces without explaining whether those were separate breaches of planning control, means of facilitating the alleged use or development for the purposes of section 55 of the 1990 Act. The recipient could not establish the council’s case from the document’s own wording.
Several steps then repeated the original problem. Requiring cessation of use of land as a residential home did not accurately describe the purported use for stationing a mobile home. Requirements concerning debris were imprecise, and the demand to reinstate a hedgerow used an unidentified boundary description.
The Inspector drew a distinction between requiring restoration of land to its pre-breach condition and a loosely drafted demand to reinstate a feature. That is not a general statement that hedgerow restoration can never be pursued. It is a warning that the notice must specify the lawful objective and the steps within the authority’s enforcement powers.
One might have expected the Melton enforcement notice to be corrected under section 176(1), but the Inspector concluded that the amendments needed were too extensive. In her words, the cumulative effect would produce a notice “fundamentally different from that before me”. She could not rewrite an unclear allegation or supply the missing reasons without creating injustice.
What quashing the notice actually means
The Inspector held that the defects could not be cured through permissible corrections and that the notice was invalid. It was therefore quashed, without any substantive decision on the appellant’s ground (f) and ground (g) arguments.
Importantly, the Melton enforcement notice being quashed does not amount to a grant of planning permission for a residential mobile home. The Inspector did not decide that the residential use was lawful, that the caravan was immune from enforcement or that the land could lawfully be occupied as a dwelling. Any further action would need to be considered separately, subject to the relevant legal constraints.
For councils, the lesson is to decide exactly what happened before drafting an allegation: building operations, a material change of use, or both. Match that to the statutory basis, identify the correct land and explain each required step so it can be understood and complied with.
For appellants and advisers, do not assume the only available arguments are the statutory grounds ticked on the form. Fundamental uncertainty in the notice can be central to its validity. But equally, not every clerical error is fatal. The Inspector’s ability to correct minor defects without injustice remains important, and this case succeeded because the defects taken together went to the substance of the allegation.
Original appeal decision
Inspector A Berry quashed enforcement appeal APP/Y2430/C/25/3371911 on 26th October 2026. The notice had been issued by Melton Borough Council on 20th August 2025 for land west of Longcliff Hill House, Old Dalby. The official Planning Inspectorate case record gives the primary appeal reference. The appeal decision is also available on AppealBase. The brief Inspector quotation is reproduced under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
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