Avoiding Planning Enforcement - A Cautioinary Tale

A Cautionary Tale of an attempt to avoid Planning Enforcement

by Leigh Bartlett and Charlotte Dolimore

Fidler v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, 2010

You may have read something about the above case in the recent national press. Mr Fidler, a landowner, built a house without planning permission and hid the building from sight by erecting a shield of straw bales and tarpaulin. The building was completed in June 2002.

Mr Fidler left the house concealed until 2006 to avoid ‘planning enforcement’ which must be taken within four years of ‘substantial completion’ (note these words).

In 2006 Mr Fidler removed the straw bales and tarpaulin to reveal the house. Shortly after, the planning inspector served a planning enforcement notice on the landowner for breach of planning law. 

The planning inspector argued that the four year rule did not start until the building was ‘substantially completed’ which was when the straw bales had been removed in 2006 as part of the ‘building operations,’ so the enforcement notice served in February 2007 was in time. Mr Fidler argued that the new dwelling house had been substantially completed with the building works finished in June 2002 and only revealed when the straw bales and tarpaulin were removed in July 2006, by which time the four year period from substantial completion of the dwelling house had expired.

The Court agreed with the planning inspector that the building operations had not been substantially completed until the removal of the straw bales in July 2006.

Therefore the four-year time limit for taking enforcement action had not expired by February 2007 and the Court held that the enforcement notice was effective. The landowner was ordered to demolish the dwelling house which had been erected without planning permission.

Mr Fidler is considering an appeal.

For further details click here to go to the BBC news site.

If you would like to talk to residential property solicitors or commercial property lawyers or simply want find out more about this story then contact Leigh Bartlett or Charlotte Dolimore on 01202 802332.

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