Stop Notices & Breach of Condition Notices

Alongside the ordinary enforcement notice sit a handful of faster or more specialised tools. A council reaches for these when the standard process would be too slow to prevent harm, or when the breach is of a particular kind: a broken condition rather than unauthorised building. They are less common than the enforcement notice, but when they are used they tend to bite hard and fast, and some of them carry no right of appeal at all.

This page covers three of them: the stop notice and the temporary stop notice, which halt an activity quickly, and the breach of condition notice, which deals specifically with planning conditions that have been ignored. It also explains the escalation that follows any enforcement notice if it is defied (prosecution, the council doing the work itself, and injunctions) and where compensation might, rarely, be payable. It sits within our wider guide to planning enforcement. If nothing has been served on you yet and you are here because somebody made a complaint, start with being reported to planning enforcement. Two other notices sit alongside these: an enforcement warning notice, which invites you to apply for permission rather than punishing you, and a section 215 notice, which is about the state of the land rather than what has been built on it.

The single most important thing to understand up front is that two of these tools (the breach of condition notice, and the prohibitions in a stop notice) cannot be appealed to the Planning Inspectorate. That changes the whole strategy, and it is where advice matters most.

The stop notice: an accelerant, not a standalone

A stop notice, under section 183 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, is a way of bringing an activity to a halt quickly. Its defining feature is that it cannot stand on its own: it must be served alongside, or after, an enforcement notice, and it works by prohibiting some or all of the activity that the enforcement notice requires to stop. Think of it as an accelerant: it removes the breathing space that the enforcement-notice compliance period would otherwise give, so that harmful activity stops now rather than after an appeal.

There are limits on what it can do. A stop notice cannot prohibit the use of a building as a dwellinghouse, and it cannot stop an activity that has been carried on for more than four years, though that four-year limit does not protect building, engineering or mining operations, or the deposit of waste. It can, importantly, stop the use of land as a residential caravan site, which is why it features in some of the most contested traveller and caravan enforcement cases.

Crucially, there is no appeal to the Planning Inspectorate against a stop notice itself. If you disagree with it, the fight is really about the underlying enforcement notice (which you can appeal) or, for the stop notice specifically, a challenge to its validity by judicial review in the High Court. Contravening a stop notice once it is in force is a criminal offence, and on conviction the fine is unlimited, with the court required to have regard to any financial benefit gained from the breach.

The temporary stop notice: instant, but time-limited

The temporary stop notice is the one tool that does not need an enforcement notice behind it. It takes effect the moment a copy is displayed on the land, lasts up to 56 days in England, cannot be appealed, and carries an unlimited fine if it is ignored. There is a separate version for listed buildings.

This now has its own detailed guide. See temporary stop notice for how display rather than service makes it bite, when compensation is payable, and the four year rule that can stop a council using one at all.

The breach of condition notice: no appeal, comply or court

This now has its own detailed guide. See breach of condition notice for who can be served, the 28 day minimum, the two defences, and why the fine in England is no longer capped.

A breach of condition notice (BCN), under section 187A, is a targeted way to deal with one specific problem: a planning condition that has been granted but not complied with. Rather than run the full enforcement-notice machinery, the council serves a notice requiring the condition to be met, specifying the steps to be taken or the activity to cease, and allowing a compliance period of at least 28 days.

Its defining feature, and the thing that catches people out, is that there is no right of appeal against a breach of condition notice. None to the Planning Inspectorate, and no merits challenge anywhere. Your only routes are to comply, or to challenge the notice’s validity by judicial review in the High Court on legal grounds. If you neither comply nor overturn it, failing to comply is a criminal offence prosecuted in the magistrates’ court, and in England the fine on conviction is now unlimited. There are two narrow statutory defences: that you took all reasonable measures to secure compliance, or, if you were served as a person “having control of the land”, that you no longer had that control.

The contrast with an enforcement notice is stark: that one can be appealed on any of seven grounds, set out on our page about the enforcement appeal grounds. Because a BCN removes that safety-net entirely, it demands a different response: the moment one arrives, the question is not “shall I appeal” but “can I comply, and if not, is there a genuine legal flaw”, and that is a question to put to someone who knows the ground quickly.

What happens if an enforcement notice is defied

Where an enforcement notice has taken effect and is then ignored, the council has an escalating set of powers, and it can use more than one:

• Prosecution – failing to comply with an enforcement notice after the compliance period is a criminal offence under section 179; the fine on conviction is unlimited, the court must have regard to any financial benefit gained, and because a fresh offence can arise for each further period of non-compliance, the exposure grows the longer the breach continues
• Direct action – under section 178 the council can enter the land, carry out the required works itself, and recover its reasonable costs from you; obstructing it while it does so is itself an offence
• Injunction – under section 187B the council can ask the High Court or county court for an injunction to restrain a breach; breaching an injunction is contempt of court, which can ultimately mean imprisonment

All three are set out in full, along with the two narrow defences and the way a conviction can lead to a confiscation order, on our page about what happens if you ignore an enforcement notice.

The practical point is that ignoring an enforcement notice is the response that reliably makes things worse and more expensive, and the escalation does not stop at a one-off fine. Our guide to enforcement notices and how to appeal explains how to challenge the notice properly, in time, before this stage is ever reached.

Is compensation ever payable?

Occasionally, but far less often than people hope. A person with an interest in the land when a stop notice is served can, in principle, claim compensation from the council for loss directly attributable to the prohibition, under section 186, and a matching provision applies to temporary stop notices. But the door is shut in the ordinary case: no compensation is payable where the activity that was stopped was itself a breach of planning control. In other words, if the notice stopped something you should not have been doing, you get nothing.

Compensation therefore bites only in the narrow situations where the notice caught something it should not have: where the activity turns out to have been lawful or permitted, or where the underlying enforcement notice is later quashed, varied or withdrawn so that the prohibition falls away. There is also a specific bar where the loss could have been avoided had you answered a planning contravention notice or otherwise co-operated. That is another reason those early information notices repay careful, prompt handling rather than silence.

Is there a cost?

None of these notices carries a “fee”. They are served on you, not applied for. The costs that arise are the same two kinds we flag across this cluster. The first is any application the situation pushes you towards: a retrospective planning application to regularise matters, or a certificate of lawfulness if a breach is old enough to be immune. Application fees are set nationally and explained in our guide to planning application fees, and a certificate for an existing use is charged at the same rate as a full planning application for the same development, with a certificate for a proposed use at half that. The second, and by far the more valuable here, is timely professional advice, because with a stop notice or BCN the usual appeal cushion is missing, and the cost of getting the response wrong is correspondingly higher.

Why these notices change the strategy: get advice fast

Everywhere else in enforcement there is an appeal to fall back on, and a deadline that at least gives you a defined window to act within. With a breach of condition notice, and with the prohibitions in a stop notice, that fallback is gone: the only merits route is compliance, and the only challenge is a narrow legal one by judicial review, which has its own tight time limits and demands proper legal grounds. That makes speed and accuracy of response more important with these tools than almost anywhere else in the system.

If you have been served with a stop notice, temporary stop notice or breach of condition notice, the sensible first move is not to work out whether to appeal (there may be no appeal) but to get a fast, clear read on whether you can comply and whether the notice is legally sound. That is exactly the kind of urgent question our team is used to, and you can reach us via here to help. Whether or not you use us, treat one of these notices as a matter for today, not next week.

Stop notices and breach of condition notices relevant legislation

The primary sources below are on legislation.gov.uk. Check the “Changes to Legislation” panel at the top of each page for any amendments not yet incorporated into the revised text.

• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s171E: temporary stop notices (up to 56 days in England)
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s183: stop notices
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s186: compensation for a stop notice, and the bar where the activity was a breach
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s187A: breach of condition notices (no right of appeal)
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s187B: injunctions to restrain a breach

Other Enforcement Sections

Stop Notices & Breach of Condition Notices Page Updated: 9th August 2026