Hilda Rafferty & Bessie Jones v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government & Anor [2009] EWCA Civ 809
Rafferty Article 8 is an important Court of Appeal judgment on Gypsy caravan sites. It rejected the idea that Article 8 only becomes relevant after a family has physically moved its caravan onto the land for which planning permission is sought.
The court held that the caravan itself is the home and that preventing a Gypsy family from stationing it on land they own can interfere with private and family life. The appeal still failed, however, because the Inspector had already weighed the same personal and planning considerations which a correct Article 8 analysis would have required.
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- Neutral citation
- [2009] EWCA Civ 809
- Court
- Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
- Judgment date
- 29th July 2009
- Judge
- The Master of the Rolls, Lord Justice Scott Baker and Lady Justice Smith
- Case number
- C1/2008/3071/QBACF
What the Rafferty Article 8 case decided
Hilda Rafferty and Bessie Jones owned two plots at Reeves Ground, Banwell, and applied to use them as a residential Gypsy caravan site. They had not moved onto the land. At the appeal hearing they were living in a caravan on a roadside lay-by and had no settled lawful base.
The Inspector refused planning permission because of serious harm to the Mendip Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, together with lesser travel and highway concerns. He accepted the family’s need for a settled base, including the children’s education and access to health care, but considered the planning harm greater.
Article 8 does not depend on moving onto the site first
The Inspector had said that the appellants did not live on the appeal land, so refusal would not cause the loss of their home. The Court of Appeal held that this was too narrow.
For a Gypsy family, the home is the caravan. Home, private life and family life are closely connected. Refusing permission to station that caravan on land owned by the family can therefore engage Article 8 even though the caravan has not yet been brought onto the site.
Scott Baker LJ regarded the opposite approach as particularly unsatisfactory because it would put someone who occupied land unlawfully before applying in a better Article 8 position than someone who applied first and remained off the land.
Living in a caravan is part of Gypsy identity
The judgment drew heavily on Chapman v United Kingdom. Stationing a caravan is not simply a property question. For Gypsies it can form an integral part of ethnic identity and the traditional way of life.
That does not create a positive duty on the state to provide a home or to grant permission for a particular site. It does mean that planning decisions affecting the ability to station a caravan may engage respect for home, private life and family life.
Our guide to Gypsy and Traveller sites explains the current planning framework, while human rights and planning enforcement covers the wider Article 8 principles.
Engaging Article 8 does not mean permission must be granted
Article 8 rights are qualified. Once engaged, the decision-maker must consider whether the interference pursues a legitimate planning aim and whether the outcome is proportionate.
Here the Inspector had already considered the appellants’ nomadic lifestyle, their need for a stable base, the children’s lack of schooling, problems accessing medical care, the absence of an alternative site and the serious landscape harm.
The Court of Appeal held that those were the same matters which would have formed the Article 8 proportionality exercise.
The Inspector was wrong on Article 8 but the appeal was still dismissed
This is an important procedural point in Rafferty. The Court of Appeal disagreed with the Inspector and High Court on whether Article 8 was engaged. That legal error did not automatically mean the planning decision had to be quashed.
Applying the principle in Simplex, the court concluded that the Inspector would inevitably have reached the same result because all the relevant factors had already been weighed in substance. The Court of Appeal therefore dismissed the appeal.
Rafferty is about the scope of Article 8, not a right to a particular site
The lasting value of the case is the rejection of a rigid distinction between an existing caravan site and a proposed one. A decision can interfere with Article 8 even before occupation of the appeal land begins.
But the existence of Article 8 rights does not displace the ordinary planning balance. Landscape protection, Green Belt policy, highway safety and other planning interests can still outweigh the personal considerations on the facts.
Read the full Rafferty judgment
The full Court of Appeal judgment is held in the Planning Geek case law library. Gold Members can open the protected PDF below.
Rafferty Article 8 Case Law Page Updated: 9th September 2026