Skerritts of Nottingham Ltd v Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions & Harrow LBC [2000] EWCA Civ 5569
Skerritts is one of the planning cases most often used when deciding whether an object or structure has become a building. The Court of Appeal upheld an Inspector’s conclusion that a substantial marquee erected for about eight months each year was a building, even though it was dismantled every winter.
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- Neutral citation
- [2000] EWCA Civ 5569; [2000] JPL 1025
- Court
- Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
- Judgment date
- 22nd March 2000
- Judge
- Lord Justice Morritt, Lord Justice Pill and Lord Justice Schiemann
- Case number
- QBCOF 1999/0690/C
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What Skerritts decided
The case concerned a marquee in the grounds of the Grimsdyke Hotel in Harrow. It was about 40 metres long, 17 metres wide and around 5 metres high at the ridge. It had an aluminium frame, a timber floor, electricity, heating, storage and toilet facilities.
The marquee was erected each February and remained until about October before being dismantled for the winter. Harrow served an enforcement notice on the basis that erecting it amounted to development without planning permission.
The Inspector concluded that the marquee was a building and that erecting it each year was a building operation. The High Court disagreed, but the Court of Appeal restored the Inspector’s decision.
Size, permanence and physical attachment
The Inspector considered three familiar factors when deciding whether the marquee was a building:
- its size
- its permanence
- its degree of physical attachment to the land
The Court of Appeal held that this was a lawful approach. These factors are useful indicators rather than a rigid statutory formula. The assessment remains one of fact and degree.
Permanence does not mean forever
The key point in Skerritts is that permanence is a flexible planning concept. A structure does not have to remain on the land indefinitely before it can be a building.
The marquee stood in place for roughly eight months each year and took several people a number of days to erect and dismantle. When erected it had a solid and substantial character. The Court of Appeal held that the Inspector was entitled to regard it as sufficiently permanent in the planning context.
The relevant question is therefore not simply whether an object can be removed. It is how the structure exists and functions on the land in the circumstances of the particular case.
Physical attachment is important but not decisive
The marquee’s frame stood on metal plates spiked into the soil, with its timber floor supported on ground beams. Its weight, bracing and ground spikes gave it a significant degree of attachment.
However, the Court of Appeal confirmed that an absence of conventional foundations or permanent fixing is not necessarily decisive. A structure can still be a building when other features point strongly in that direction.
Why Skerritts matters for containers, cabins and movable structures
Skerritts is regularly used when planners have to decide whether something described as temporary, movable or demountable is nevertheless a building. The label put on an object by its owner does not decide the planning question.
The same fact-and-degree exercise can arise with shipping containers, modular units, large shelters, cabins and other structures. A smaller object that is genuinely mobile and fleeting may reach a different result from the substantial marquee in Skerritts.
This is the March 2000 Skerritts judgment
There is another Court of Appeal judgment involving Skerritts of Nottingham from 2000. The present case is the 22nd March 2000 marquee judgment, cited by BAILII as [2000] EWCA Civ 5569 and also reported at [2000] JPL 1025. It is sometimes referred to as Skerritts (No 2).
It should not be confused with the separate Skerritts judgment from 25th February 2000 concerning listed-building enforcement and curtilage.
Read the full Skerritts judgment
The Court of Appeal judgment is held in the Planning Geek case law library. Gold Members can open the protected copy below.
Related Planning Geek cases and examples
Planning Geek has recently applied the Skerritts principles to a shipping container appeal in Rayleigh, a wheeled car port and a CIL annexe appeal where caravan and building tests overlapped.
Skerritts Case Law Page Updated: 9th September 2026