C.W. Larkin v Basildon District Council and Secretary of State for the Environment (1980) JPL 407
C.W. Larkin is a Divisional Court case about an attempted staged rebuilding of a dwellinghouse under permitted development rights. The owner replaced two external walls and then sought to replace the remaining two.
The court held that it was open to the Secretary of State to find that the original dwelling had virtually ceased to exist and that the works were part of constructing a new dwelling rather than merely improving or altering the old one.
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- Neutral citation
- (1980) JPL 407; [1980] 2 EGLR 147
- Court
- High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division, Divisional Court
- Judgment date
- 6th March 1980
- Judge
- Lord Widgery CJ and May J
The owner tried to replace the house walls in stages
The case concerned a bungalow at Little Burstead in Essex. The owner sought to replace two external walls on one occasion and then the other two later, relying on the permitted development rights then available for enlargement, improvement or alteration of a dwellinghouse.
The enforcement notice attacked the construction of the new external walls.
Improvement requires an existing dwellinghouse to improve
The court referred to Sainty and Street. Those cases showed that the permitted development wording was directed to works carried out to a dwellinghouse which continued to exist as such while the operations were undertaken.
It may sometimes be possible to renew a building in stages without crossing the planning line, but that does not give an owner a general right to rebuild a house piecemeal while calling each stage an improvement.
What remained of the original building mattered
By the time of the disputed works, none of the original external walls remained. The surviving elements were some internal supporting walls, the roof and part of the floor.
On those facts, the Secretary of State was entitled to conclude that the original building had virtually ceased to exist and that the works formed part of constructing a new dwelling.
The distinction is one of fact and degree
Lord Widgery CJ stressed that the real question was whether the operations were properly characterised as improvement or as rebuilding. That is a question of fact and degree.
The sequence chosen by the owner did not control the answer. The decision-maker was entitled to look at the reality and totality of what had happened to the building.
Why Larkin still matters
The case considered the 1977 General Development Order, not today’s GPDO, so it should not be treated as a substitute for the current permitted development rules.
Its broader lesson remains useful: permitted development rights for alterations to an existing dwelling do not normally provide a route for replacing the dwelling with a new building merely by carrying out the reconstruction in stages.
Judgment source
Planning Geek holds a locally hosted copy of the judgment.
Gold Members can download the judgment below.
C.W. Larkin Case Law Page Updated: 10th September 2026