Hiley v Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities [2022] EWHC 1289 (Admin)
Hiley curtilage is an important High Court judgment on the meaning of land within the curtilage of industrial and warehouse buildings. Mr Justice Julian Knowles quashed an Inspector’s refusal of a proposed lawful development certificate because the Inspector applied incorrect legal principles about the size, enclosure and functional relationship of land surrounding the business park.
The judgment was handed down on 27 May 2022 in the Planning Court. It concerned Schedule 2, Part 7, Classes H and J of the General Permitted Development Order in England. The court did not hold that the particular field was within the industrial buildings’ curtilage or grant the certificate itself. It sent the appeal back for redetermination under the correct legal approach.
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Hiley curtilage judgment: court and decision
Neutral citation: [2022] EWHC 1289 (Admin). Case number: CO/2124/2021. Court: High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division, Administrative Court, Planning Court. Judge: Mr Justice Julian Knowles. Date: 27 May 2022. Appellant: Herbert Hiley. Respondents: Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and East Lindsey District Council.
Outcome: Statutory appeal allowed; Inspector’s decision quashed and remitted for fresh determination. Territorial relevance: direct application to England’s GPDO Part 7 and wider guidance on the concept of curtilage. The judgment does not itself decide a planning case under devolved GPDO regimes.
A field beside Station Business Park
Mr Hiley owned Station Business Park near Stickney in Lincolnshire. The industrial and warehouse buildings sat beside hardstanding used for vehicle parking and storage. An adjoining field contained a pond and drainage interceptor linked to the commercial buildings, with hedges and gated access between the developed area and the field.
On 30 September 2019 he applied under section 192 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 for a certificate confirming that a proposed workshop, storage building, hardstanding and vehicular access would be lawful under Classes H and J. The council refused the certificate on 10 December 2019.
Inspector Alexander Walker dismissed the subsequent section 195 appeal on 10 May 2021. The Inspector concluded that the field was not within the curtilage of the existing industrial or warehouse buildings. The dispute was not principally about the merits of a new structure, but about the lawful reach of permitted development rights into land beyond the existing buildings.
Hiley curtilage and the part-and-parcel test
The High Court considered the Court of Appeal’s approach in Methuen-Campbell v Walters [1979] QB 525, subsequently approved in Blackbushe Airport [2021] EWCA Civ 398. The central enquiry is whether the land has such a close association with the building that it can properly be treated as part and parcel of that building.
The correct approach is evaluative and fact-specific. Physical layout, ownership history and past or present use are relevant, but they are not three independent hurdles that must all be satisfied. In particular, a planning unit may extend much further than the curtilage of an individual building. A landowner cannot rely solely on a red-line application site or common title to establish curtilage.
The court emphasised the distinction between factors that may influence the factual assessment and rigid rules of law. Land need not be small in every case, and it need not fall within a single physical enclosure. Equally, the mere fact that land serves a shared operational function does not automatically bring it within curtilage.
Why the Inspector’s approach was unlawful
The Inspector had referred to curtilage as limited to a small area around a building and had treated a common enclosure as a requirement. Those propositions were inconsistent with the later Court of Appeal authorities. The court also found an error in the reliance on functional separation where that became an alternative test to the proper question of intimate association.
Mr Justice Julian Knowles considered the decision as a whole, rather than subjecting isolated words to undue legalism. The defects were nonetheless substantive. The Inspector had applied a test the law did not require. At paragraph 48, the judge concluded that the Inspector misdirected himself on a number of issues
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The court did not say that relative size, fencing, separate occupation or functional differences were always irrelevant evidence. It explained why those features must feed into an overall part-and-parcel assessment rather than being treated as automatic bars. This is a valuable distinction when weighing diagrams, site photographs and evidence of use in a lawful development certificate application.
What the High Court actually ordered
The section 288 appeal succeeded. The Inspector’s 10 May 2021 decision could not stand and was quashed. The matter was remitted to the Secretary of State for a new decision on the section 195 appeal. The judicial outcome therefore corrected the legal test; it did not establish as a final matter of fact that the workshop and hardstanding were authorised.
That procedural point is especially important in an article about permitted development. A successful court challenge to the legal reasoning in a refusal is not equivalent to a planning permission or a certificate confirming that works can proceed. A redetermined appeal could still turn on an accurate assessment of the evidence and the other limitations of the relevant GPDO class.
Why Hiley matters to industrial permitted development
A 2026 planning appeal involving an entrance canopy at Kent Science Park cited Hiley and Methuen-Campbell when considering the five-metre curtilage boundary rule. Our industrial canopy appeal report explains why the Inspector rejected the certificate on those specific facts.
For industrial estates, warehouses, vehicle workshops and service yards, the practical exercise is to define the relevant building’s curtilage rather than assume all land in the commercial ownership is covered. Evidence might include the way the immediate surroundings are physically arranged, established access and servicing, the historical relationship of surrounding land to each building, and whether the claimed area is properly part and parcel of the structure concerned.
Our Class H permitted development guide and general curtilage guide cover the additional requirements. Hiley curtilage does not remove specific statutory limits such as minimum boundary distances or substitute an asserted operational benefit for evidence of the legal extent of the curtilage.
Full judgment and primary sources
The court-approved judgment is Hiley v Secretary of State [2022] EWHC 1289 (Admin), handed down on 27 May 2022. The Planning Court’s published reasoning was also reproduced in an 11-page judgment copy that was consulted for this draft. The protected Planning Geek original download remains subject to verification and is not available from this unpublished entry.
For the legal background, see the separate Planning Geek Case Law entries for Methuen-Campbell and Blackbushe Airport.