In determining an appeal against an enforcement notice directed at the conversion of a terrace house in southeast London to two flats (DCS Number 400-024-950), an inspector has explained how a notice might constitute a nullity.
Monthly Archives: February 2020
Will it stand or will it fall?
Appellants who were hoping to gain permission for an additional residential caravan on their pitch in north Yorkshire will no doubt be interested in the fate of the Finney judgment, reported in A conflict situation, in the Supreme Court.
A poisoned chalice?
Is pre-application advice sometimes a poisoned chalice? A case in point concerns a recent appeal relating to a proposal for a new dwelling to the rear of an existing house in Derbyshire (DCS Number 400-025-015). In this case the inspector awarded costs against the council after she found the pre-application advice which had been given to be misleading.
A place for everything
….and everything in its place.
An inspector has decided that a digital advertisement to replace a paper and paste advertisement would be out of place in suburban Bristol (DCS Number 400-024-682).
As the pigeon flies
In an appeal case in which the potential threat to residential amenity came from an airborne source the inspector took the topography of the land into account in coming to her decision. In this case (DCS Number 400-024-952) a south Wales householder was denied permission to retain a pigeon loft in his rear garden.
Oversimplification
A light touch is one thing but you can go too far.
In dealing with an appeal relating to a prior approval application for a rear extension to a house in southeast London under Part 1, Class A of the GPDO (DCS Number 400-024-852) an inspector pointed out that the plans do not need to be drawn to scale.
A light touch approach
The change of use of a B1(c) light industrial building in southeast London used for the manufacture of event sets to C3 residential under Schedule 2, Part 3, Class PA of the GPDO has been deemed to be permitted development by an inspector notwithstanding intervening uses since the relevant date (DCS Number 200-009-116).
Anytime soon
In Shakespeare’s day ‘presently’ only meant in the present, now. Over a few centuries the procrastinators amongst us have managed to stretch the meaning of the word such that it can also mean in the near future, soonish. Likewise, ‘immediately’ might not mean exactly the same thing to one person as it does to another. Against this background you can see the inspector’s problem with an enforcement notice which required the use of a site in Gloucestershire as a storage yard to cease ‘immediately’ (DCS Number 400-024-830). He declared the notice a nullity and without legal effect.