James v Minister of Housing and Local Government
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Reid,Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest,Lord Guest,Lord Upjohn,Lord Wilberforce |
| Judgment Date | 24 November 1966 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1966] UKHL J1124-2 |
| Date | 24 November 1966 |
| Court | House of Lords |
[1966] UKHL J1124-2
House of Lords
Lord Reid
Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest
Lord Guest
Lord Upjohn
Lord Wilberforce
Upon Report from the Appellate Committee, to whom was referred the Cause James against Secretary of State for Wales (formerly the Minister of Housing and Local Government) and others, that the Committee had heard Counsel, as well on Tuesday the 4th, as on Wednesday the 5th, Thursday the 6th, Monday the 10th and Tuesday the 11th, days of October last, upon the Petition and Appeal of John Morgan James, of Royal Oak, Llanfihangel-Talyllyn, in the County of Brecon, praying, That the matter of the Order set forth in the Schedule thereto, namely, an Order of Her Majesty's Court of Appeal of the 8th of July 1965, might be reviewed before Her Majesty the Queen, in Her Court of Parliament, and that the said Order might be reversed, varied or altered, or that the Petitioner might have such other relief in the premises as to Her Majesty the Queen, in Her Court of Parliament, might seem meet; as also upon the Case of the Secretary of State for Wales (formerly the Minister of Housing and Local Government) and the Breconshire County Council, lodged in answer to the said Appeal; and due consideration had this day of what was offered on either side in this Cause:
It is Ordered and Adjudged, by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in the Court of Parliament of Her Majesty the Queen assembled, That the said Order of Her Majesty's Court of Appeal, of the 8th day of July 1965, complained of in the said Appeal, be, and the same is hereby, Reversed: And it is further Ordered, That the said Cause be, and the same is hereby, remitted back to the Secretary of State for Wales (formerly the Minister of Housing and Local Government) with a Direction to hold such inquiry as is necessary to give effect to the views contained in the majority Opinions expressed in this House, and to determine the Case: And it is also further Ordered, That the Respondent, the Secretary of State for Wales (formerly the Minister of Housing and Local Government), do pay, or cause to be paid, to the said Appellant the Costs incurred by him in the Courts below, and also the Costs incurred by him in respect of the said Appeal to this House, the amount of such last-mentioned Costs to be certified by the Clerk of the Parliaments.
My Lords,
The Appellant owns an area of about 3 1/2 acres on the northern shore of Llangorse Lake in Breconshire, referred to as the Royal Oak Cafe and Camping Ground. On 8th March 1963 there was served on him by the local planning authority an enforcement notice which required him "to remove from the said land all the caravans which are not the subject of planning permission and cease using the said land for the stationing of more than one caravan". He appealed to the Minister, the first Respondent, who after an enquiry on 13th August 1964 dismissed the appeal and upheld the notice. Section 180 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1962 permits an appeal to the High Court against such a decision on a point of law, and the Appellant duly appealed. A Divisional Court on 19th January 1965 allowed the appeal and remitted the matter to the Minister with a direction which it is now unnecessary to consider. The Appellant was dissatisfied with this and appealed to the Court of Appeal which dismissed his appeal. Having obtained leave he now appeals to this House.
The points of law on which the Appellant appeals have never been very clearly defined and no objection was taken by the Respondents to the argument ranging widely. So I find it necessary to state, as briefly as possible, the course of events which preceded the serving of this enforcement notice. The Appellant bought the land in 1952 apparently with the object of making it a pleasure ground and camping ground. He made a number of applications for planning permission. The first which it is necessary to deal with is that of 29th September 1956. There he stated the purposes of proposed development as "cafe, swing boats etc.", and the purposes for which it was then being used as "cafe pleasure ground and camping site". Nothing was said in the application about caravans but the plan submitted with the application shewed one "permanent caravan" stationed near the North West corner of the area. An area of nearly one acre at the North East Corner was marked "camping site".
On 29th December 1956 the local planning authority issued a document permitting the "proposed lakeside and pleasure ground at Llangorse Lake in accordance with the plan and application" subject to a number of conditions. As regards the camping site the number of tents and caravans was limited to twelve. The Appellant was dissatisfied and appealed to the Minister, but as a result the Minister in 1958 cut down the permission by striking out the condition permitting twelve tents or caravans and making other changes. The permission in its final form contained no express permission even for the permanent caravan but it is I think clear from a reference to it in Condition 14 that there must be implied a permission to retain the permanent caravan on the site shewn in the plan. On the other hand no permission to station the permanent caravan on any other site in the area can be implied.
Although the Minister had refused permission the Appellant brought some caravans on to the area, and no steps were taken by the local authority to stop him. The Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 makes special provision with regard to "existing sites", and it is admitted that when this Act came into operation there were one or more "existing sites" on the area within the definition in Section 13 in addition to the site of the permanent caravan. But the situation and extent of those existing sites has never been ascertained.
The 1960 Act prohibited the use of any land as a caravan site unless the occupier had obtained a site licence. Site licences are issued by the local authority and not by the local planning authority. Sometimes they are different bodies but in the present case the Second Respondents, the local authority, appear to have had planning powers delegated to them by the planning authority. A local authority can only issue a site licence if the applicant "is, at the time when the site licence is issued, entitled to the benefit of a permission for the use of the land as a caravan site …". (Section 3(3)). In the ordinary case a person who does not have such permission must apply to the planning authority for planning permission in addition to applying to the local authority for a site licence. But the Act recognised that many occupiers of land had brought caravans on to their land and kept them there without permission. It defined existing "site" in Section 13, and Section 17 made it unnecessary for certain occupiers of existing sites to make two separate applications. As much of the argument has turned on the meaning of Section 17 I must quote it in full:
"17.—(1) This section shall apply to any application for a site licence in respect of an existing site which is made within two months of the commencement of this Act, or within such longer period as the local authority to whom the application is made may, having regard to the special circumstances of the case, allow, other than an application in respect of a site which has at the date of the application the benefit of a permission for the use of the land as a caravan site granted under Part III of the Act of 1947 otherwise than by a development order.
(2) On the making of an application to which this section applies, the local authority to whom the application is made shall take any steps required for transmitting the application to the local planning authority and the local planning authority may grant permission for the use of the existing site as a caravan site under Part III of the Act of 1947 as if the application for the site licence were an application for such permission (and as if compliance with sections thirty-six and thirty-seven of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1959 (which impose requirements to be complied with before certain applications for planning permission are entertained), were not required).
(3) Unless—
( a) before the expiration of a period of six months beginning with the date on which the application is made permission has been granted in pursuance of the last foregoing subsection for the use of the land to which the application relates as a caravan site, or
( b) before the expiration of the said period, and either before or after the commencement of this Act, the owner and occupier (within the meaning of the Act of 1947) of the land have been served with an enforcement notice under section twenty-three of that Act requiring the use of the land as a caravan site to be discontinued or with notice of an order submitted to the Minister under section twenty-six of that Act and requiring that use to be discontinued,
permission for the use of the land as a caravan site shall be deemed for all purposes to have been granted at the end of that period under the said Part III of the Act of 1947 without any condition or limitation."
This section is complicated and some parts of it are difficult to construe, so it is not surprising that neither the Appellant nor the local authority appears to have understood it fully at any time. The section assumes that an application made under it will only be made in respect of an area (or areas) the whole of which is an existing site within the meaning of the definition. In the present case the Appellant made an application on 10th October 1960—within the time allowed by the Section—but the application was in respect of the whole Royal Oak site. Much of this area was admittedly not part of any existing site, but it was...
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