Couple lose High Court enforcement battle over extent of house alteration

A Surrey couple must demolish a house that they extended on such a large scale as to render it a new structure.

That ruling has come from the Court of Appeal in a case brought by Craig and Gaynor Arnold against Guildford Borough Council and the Communities Secretary.

They owned an arts and crafts style cottage in the Green Belt, which had had some earlier extensions but which they later added to so extensively that the council served an enforcement notice requiring demolition.

Giving judgment in Arnold & Anor v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government & Anor [2017] EWCA Civ 231, Lindblom LJ said the planning inspector who heard their appeal against Guildford’s enforcement notice had not made any error in law.

In 2011 the council issued two certificates of lawful development, for a single-storey rear extension and a two-storey front extension.

The judgment said: “Mr and Mrs Arnold began extensive works to the building – believing, it seems, that those works had the benefit of planning permission granted by the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995.

“They now accept, as I understand it, that the works did not correspond to the development for which the certificates had been issued.”

The judgment noted that the inspector had found: “The only logical conclusion to draw given the scale and amount of demolition that took place is that what has been built is a new dwelling and not one that has been repaired and extended by alteration and enlargement.

“Reaching any other conclusion based on the facts would be contrary and send out a message that it is possible to build a new dwelling of a fundamentally different design by employing an argument of staged removal and replacement under [permitted development] rights.”

The Arnolds' appeal argued the inspector misdirected himself as to his power to grant planning permission for an alternative and did not lawfully consider the relevant alternatives.

But the judge said: “It is necessary, as always, to read the inspector's relevant conclusions fully, in their proper context, and bearing in mind that the decision letter was written principally for the parties to the appeals, who were of course familiar with the evidence and submissions presented on either side at the inquiry.

“One should not isolate particular passages in the inspector’s conclusions from others which are also relevant to the specific point being considered in the passage in question.”

Taking this approach, the judge said he could not “find any error of law in the inspector's approach”.

The inspector had concluded that none of the alternatives suggested would "overcome the planning harms which he had identified".

Therefore the judge said: “When the decision letter is read as whole, the relevant conclusions are…entirely comprehensible.”