Royale Parks Ltd v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government [2021] EWCA Civ 1101

Royale Parks is a Court of Appeal decision about the limits of enforcement immunity where only part of a caravan site has been used contrary to a planning condition for long enough. The fact that some identifiable plots have become lawful does not automatically remove the condition from the entire site.

Lord Justice Singh endorsed the approach in R (St Anselm Development Co Ltd) v First Secretary of State [2003] EWHC 1592 (Admin). The particular breach and the land on which it occurred must be identified. The Court also rejected an argument that the council’s earlier withdrawal of enforcement notices and letters prevented future enforcement against other unauthorised uses.

Neutral citation

[2021] EWCA Civ 1101

Court

Court of Appeal (Civil Division)

Judgment date

19th July 2021

Judge

Singh LJ, Dingemans LJ, Sir Nigel Davis

Case number

C1/2020/1320

What happened at Tall Trees Park?

The dispute arose at Tall Trees Park, Matchams Lane, Hurn, Christchurch. Planning permissions for the caravan park contained conditions restricting occupation of caravans and chalets to holiday purposes, except for a warden’s accommodation. The land included physically identifiable pitches and common areas, and the relevant area of the park was described in the proceedings as Area B.

Some caravans had been occupied as people’s sole or main residences in breach of those conditions for more than ten years. Four individual plots had received certificates of lawful use or development. Royale Parks Limited subsequently sought a certificate extending residential lawfulness across the remainder of Area B. Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council refused the application, and a Planning Inspector dismissed the appeal on 1 April 2020.

Royale Parks brought a challenge under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The case reached the Court of Appeal, which considered the substantive challenge rather than simply reviewing the High Court’s earlier refusal of permission. Lord Justice Singh gave the leading judgment on 19 July 2021. Lord Justice Dingemans and Sir Nigel Davis agreed.

Does an established breach make the entire site lawful?

The first ground contended that, because the whole park was one planning unit and a single condition applied to it, an established breach on four pitches had made that condition unenforceable throughout the larger area. Royale Parks argued that the Inspector’s decision to confine lawfulness to individual plots was inconsistent with his finding about the planning unit and with the mobility of caravans.

The Court rejected the argument. Singh LJ explained that identifying the planning unit was not the decisive exercise in deciding where enforcement immunity applied. The planning-unit concept is primarily used in assessing material changes of use. A certificate of lawfulness, by contrast, must relate to the precise use or breach and the land on which that use has accrued immunity.

The Court accepted that caravan pitches need not have been numbered or delineated on the original planning permission. It was enough that they were physically well defined and identifiable on the ground. Shared access over other parts of the park did not mean that long-standing permanent residential occupation on one pitch amounted to a breach across every pitch.

St Anselm confirmed: focus on the particular breach

In St Anselm, fourteen basement car parking spaces had been used in breach of a condition for the required period but five others had not. Sullivan J held that immunity arising in the first group did not prevent enforcement concerning the remaining spaces. The Court of Appeal approved that approach in Royale Parks.

Singh LJ emphasised that some conditions relate inseparably to an entire site, while others can be breached on identifiable portions of it. The distinction is one of fact and degree. In cases such as this, the issue is the precise breach that an enforcement notice could lawfully address and remedy, not simply the wording of a condition in isolation.

The Court approved the principle that a condition breach established on part of the site does not create immunity for areas on which the condition continues to be observed. A landowner cannot generally rely on compliant areas, common access roads or the existence of a single management arrangement to expand a certificate beyond the land where the facts support it.

Did withdrawing enforcement notices create a right to residential use?

Royale Parks also argued that council letters and earlier decisions not to pursue enforcement had created a legitimate expectation preventing further action. The company relied on references to withdrawn notices, future expediency and the likelihood that some uses might become lawful with time.

The Court rejected that ground as well. The correspondence did not amount to an unequivocal and unqualified promise that future unauthorised uses anywhere on the site would not be enforced against. A planning authority’s current decision that enforcement is not expedient is not, without more, a permanent surrender of the power to enforce against different future matters.

The Court did not finally decide the general scope of legitimate expectation in this context. It was prepared to assume for the purpose of argument that a sufficiently clear and binding representation might be relevant under section 191(2)(a), but found no such representation on the facts. The case should not be read as excluding every legitimate-expectation argument in planning enforcement.

The decision and subsequent relevance

The Court of Appeal refused the section 288 application, leaving the refusal of the wider certificate in place. Royale Parks was ordered to pay the Secretary of State’s costs, but the Court declined a separate costs order for the local planning authority. This distinction in the costs outcome is part of the judgment’s disposal.

The decision remains important where land has several demarcated plots, units, bays or pitches with different occupation histories. It helps explain why the scope of a certificate of lawfulness may be narrower than the extent of a site under a single ownership or planning permission. It has also been applied in later planning appeals involving spatially separate parking uses.

The legal principles are fact-specific. They do not replace the need to identify the actual planning condition, the relevant enforcement time limit, the land concerned and evidence of continuous breach. For background on the types of consent and restrictions affecting mobile accommodation, see Planning Geek’s guide to caravan parks and planning permission.

Read the full judgment

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