Pathfield Estates Ltd v London Borough of Haringey [2023] EWHC 1790 (Admin)
Pathfield Estates is an important case on section 173A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. It confirms that a council can accept a particular state of affairs as satisfactory compliance with an enforcement notice without necessarily varying, waiving or relaxing the notice itself.
That distinction can matter years later, because compliance with an enforcement notice does not discharge it.
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- Neutral citation
- [2023] EWHC 1790 (Admin)
- Court
- High Court of Justice, King's Bench Division, Divisional Court
- Judgment date
- 14th July 2023
- Judge
- Lady Justice Whipple and Mr Justice Holgate
- Case number
- CO/3692/2022
What happened at 13 Bounds Green Road
The property had historically been lawfully used as two flats. Haringey discovered in 2007 that it had been converted into five self-contained flats without planning permission.
An enforcement notice issued in March 2008 contained four requirements, including a requirement to restore the property as two flats.
Later that year, after discussions on site, the council accepted a proposal to use the property as a single dwellinghouse. An enforcement officer recorded that this was acceptable for compliance and sent closure letters stating that the notice had been complied with to the council’s satisfaction.
The property later returned to multiple flats
The property was subsequently used as six self-contained flats. Haringey treated that use as being in breach of the original enforcement notice.
Pathfield was prosecuted and convicted. Its argument was that the 2008 actions had effectively waived or relaxed the requirement to restore the property to two flats under section 173A.
If that were right, the later use could not be prosecuted on the basis that the original two-flat requirement still remained in force.
Section 173A allows an authority to waive or relax a requirement
Section 173A gives a local planning authority power to:
- withdraw an enforcement notice
- waive or relax a requirement of the notice
- extend the period for compliance
When the authority exercises those powers, section 173A(3) requires it to give notice of that exercise to the people who have been served with the enforcement notice.
The issue in Pathfield was whether Haringey had in substance exercised that statutory power in 2008 even though no formal variation notice had been given.
Whether a notice has been varied is a mixed question of fact and law
The Divisional Court rejected the suggestion that the issue was purely factual.
There is a substantial factual component because the court must examine what the authority said and did. But the question has to be answered within the statutory framework governing enforcement notices and section 173A.
The court was therefore entitled to consider all of the evidence, including internal council file notes, the officer’s later witness statement, communications with Pathfield and the absence of formal section 173A notice.
Satisfactory compliance is not the same as variation
This is the central point in Pathfield.
Haringey had accepted that using the property as a single dwelling achieved the main planning objective of the enforcement notice by reducing the over-intensive five-flat use.
The council could decide that this was sufficiently satisfactory for it to close the active enforcement case and take no prosecution action while the property remained a single dwelling.
That did not necessarily mean the statutory requirement to restore the building to two flats had been deleted or altered.
A council can say how it will enforce without changing the notice
The court relied on the same distinction identified in Wilsdon v Maldon District Council.
An authority may explain that it will regard particular works or a particular state of affairs as acceptable compliance, or state that it does not intend to take enforcement action, without formally varying the legal requirements of the notice.
Those are different decisions.
This means a letter saying that a case is closed or that the council is satisfied can be important evidence, but its legal effect depends on what the authority actually decided in the statutory context.
The internal evidence supported no waiver
The original enforcement officer had explained that she considered one dwelling to achieve the aims of the notice even better than two flats because it reduced the intensity of use further.
Crucially, she also understood that the owner could later convert the single dwelling to two flats and remain within the original requirement.
That evidence was consistent with the council having accepted a less intensive use without intending to remove requirement 3 from the notice.
The absence of section 173A notice mattered
No notice had been issued under section 173A(3) notifying Pathfield that the enforcement requirement had been waived or relaxed.
The court did not say that the absence of formal notice was automatically decisive in every case. It was, however, evidentially significant and consistent with all of the other evidence showing that Haringey had never intended to vary the notice.
Compliance does not discharge an enforcement notice
Section 181 is critical. Compliance with an enforcement notice does not discharge it.
If a notice requires a use to cease, that prohibition normally continues. If the unlawful use later resumes, the existing notice can still be relevant and enforceable.
Pathfield therefore shows why it can be dangerous to assume that an old notice has disappeared merely because the council once closed its active case file.
A more onerous replacement requirement could not simply be invented
There was another practical reason why the 2008 discussions fitted better with satisfactory compliance than formal variation.
The original notice required restoration to two flats. Making use as a single dwelling the new binding requirement would have been more onerous. Section 173A allows an authority to waive or relax requirements, not make them stricter.
The council could accept one dwelling without turning that acceptance into a new mandatory one-dwelling requirement.
Why Pathfield matters in practice
If a council agrees a different compliance route from the literal wording of an enforcement notice, both sides should be clear about what is actually being agreed.
There is a major difference between:
- the council saying it will accept something as satisfactory compliance
- an assurance that it will not prosecute
- a formal withdrawal of the notice
- a formal waiver or relaxation under section 173A
Those routes can have very different consequences if the site later changes hands or the unauthorised use returns.
Read the full Pathfield judgment
The approved Divisional Court judgment is held in the Planning Geek case law library. Gold Members can open the protected PDF below.
Related Planning Geek guidance
See our guide to section 173A and changing, relaxing or withdrawing an enforcement notice and our main guide to enforcement notices and appeals.
Pathfield Estates Case Law Page Updated: 9th September 2026