R (on the application of Enlli Angharad Williams) v Cyngor Gwynedd [2025] EWHC 2395 (Admin)
Williams v Cyngor Gwynedd is an important Welsh planning case on Article 4 directions, second homes and short-term holiday lets.
Mr Justice Eyre quashed Gwynedd’s decision to confirm an Article 4 direction removing permitted development rights between Welsh Use Classes C3, C5 and C6. The problem was not that an Article 4 direction could never be justified. It was that Cabinet members had been materially misled about what the direction would actually control.
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- Neutral citation
- [2025] EWHC 2395 (Admin)
- Court
- High Court of Justice, King's Bench Division, Planning Court
- Judgment date
- 24th September 2025
- Judge
- Mr Justice Eyre
- Case number
- AC-2024-CDF-000147
Wales created separate C3, C5 and C6 use classes
Welsh legislation introduced separate use classes for primary homes, second homes and short-term lets.
- Class C3 covers dwellinghouses used as a sole or main residence
- Class C5 covers dwellinghouses used otherwise than as a sole or main residence
- Class C6 covers commercial short-term letting
The Welsh GPDO simultaneously allowed specified changes between those uses as permitted development.
Changing use class does not itself prove there is development
This is the central legal point.
A change from one use class to another only needs planning permission if the change is a material change of use. The Use Classes Order does not deem every cross-class change to be material.
That principle applies even though Wales now has separate C3, C5 and C6 classes. Whether changing a dwelling from a main home to a second home or holiday let amounts to development remains a question of fact and degree.
An Article 4 direction removes PD rights, not the definition of development
Gwynedd used Article 4 to remove the permitted development rights which otherwise allowed certain changes between C3, C5 and C6.
That restored planning control over changes which were already development because they amounted to a material change of use.
It did not turn a non-material change into development. If the factual change in use is not material, planning permission is not required even after the permitted development right has been withdrawn.
The Cabinet papers gave the wrong overall impression
The court read the officer report and roughly 200 pages of accompanying material as a whole.
Although there was one isolated reference to material change of use, the repeated overall message was that property owners would need planning permission whenever they changed between the relevant use classes.
The court held that this materially misled Cabinet members. Unlike a planning committee dealing with planning applications regularly, the Cabinet could not simply be assumed to have specialist knowledge of the statutory definition of development.
The limit of the Article 4 direction mattered to proportionality
The direction interfered with property rights protected by Article 1 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights.
Cabinet therefore had to understand both the burden imposed on owners and how effective the direction would be in achieving its housing-policy objective.
Believing that every C3/C5/C6 change would come under control was materially different from knowing that only changes amounting to a material change of use could be controlled.
The court would not say the same decision was inevitable
Gwynedd argued that, even if members had been misled, they would plainly have made the Article 4 direction anyway because partial control was still better than none.
The court rejected that as too speculative. The effectiveness of the measure went to the heart of the proportionality exercise.
It was at least possible that Cabinet might have assessed the balance differently if members had understood the legal limits correctly. The statutory no-difference test therefore did not prevent relief.
The Article 4 decision was quashed
The claim succeeded because the decision had been reached on a materially false basis.
The judgment does not say that Gwynedd lacked power to make an Article 4 direction or that no such direction could ever be proportionate. It means the decision-maker had to be accurately advised about what the direction would and would not achieve.
Read the full Williams judgment
The approved Planning Court judgment is held in the Planning Geek case law library. Gold Members can open the protected PDF below.
Related Planning Geek guidance
See GPDO Article 4 Wales for the Welsh Article 4 provisions and how they interact with permitted development.
Williams v Cyngor Gwynedd Case Law Page Updated: 9th September 2026