Enforcement Notice in UK Law

They will be confined to those in which both (a) there is a defect in the Enforcement Notice which can irrefutably be established, and (b) the landowner had an understandable reason for omitting to pursue a section 174 appeal. There is, we are told, no power even in an exceptional case to extend time for bringing a section 174 appeal.

It was in the first place contended that the Act was highly technical and as it encroached on private rights the Court must insist on strict and rigid adherence to formalities. This, as a general proposition, commands assent, and not the less because disregard of an enforcement notice is an offence involving sufficiently serious penal consequences.

Where it appears that a breach or apprehended breach will continue or occur unless and until effectively restrained by the law and that nothing short of an injunction will provide effective restraint ( City of London Corporation v Bovis Construction Ltd [1992] 3 All ER 697, 714), that will point strongly towards the grant of an injunction. But in all cases the court must decide whether in all the circumstances it is just to grant the relief sought against the particular defendant.

I accept Mr Corner's point that an enforcement notice can lawfully be issued notwithstanding that at the moment of issue the activity objected to is not going on—because it is the week-end or the factory's summer holiday, for instance. The land would still be properly described as being used for the objectionable activity. I accept that there will be borderline cases when it is not clear whether the land is being used for the objectionable activity.

On the facts of cases such as the present, it will not be sufficient if the works are integral to or part and parcel of the present unauthorised use of land if the works had been undertaken for a different, and lawful, use and could be used for that other, lawful use even if the unauthorised use ceased.

Mr Beesley could have applied for a certificate under subsection (1) in respect of the building as soon as July 2006 was over, but he has not done so. It is that, once a planning authority has allowed the four year period for enforcement against the building to pass, principles of fairness and good governance could, in appropriate circumstances, preclude it from subsequently taking enforcement steps to render the building useless.

I do not think that in practice hardship will be caused by requiring the residual grounds to be raised in judicial review proceedings. The statutory grounds of appeal are so wide that they include every aspect of the merits of the decision to serve an enforcement notice.