Haytop Country Park v Amber Valley: Site licensing must harmonise with planning control

The Court of Appeal has decisively clarified the relationship between planning control and caravan site licensing, confirming that site licensing authorities cannot grant licences inconsistent with established planning permissions or enforcement notice determinations.

Haytop Country Park Limited acquired a caravan site in Derbyshire's Derwent Valley, within a World Heritage Site buffer zone and Special Landscape Area. The site benefited from 1952 and 1966 planning permissions authorising up to 60 caravans, with a 1968 site licence imposing detailed operational conditions.

In March 2017, the appellant unlawfully felled 121 protected trees and undertook substantial engineering operations, creating terraced platforms with concrete hardstandings and retaining walls. Amber Valley Borough Council issued an enforcement notice requiring removal of these works and land restoration. The Planning Inspector dismissed the appellant's appeal, concluding the works constituted unauthorised development causing harm to heritage assets and landscape character. The High Court upheld this decision.

The licensing dispute

When the Council subsequently granted a site licence limited to three caravans (to avoid conflict with the enforcement notice), the appellant appealed. The First-tier Tribunal increased this to 18 plots, reasoning that enforcement notice requirements were "planning matters" irrelevant to site licensing decisions. The Tribunal suggested that any new hardstandings required by licence conditions would attract Class B permitted development rights under the GPDO 2015, potentially rendering the enforcement notice ineffective.

The Upper Tribunal reversed this decision, holding that the FTT had improperly disregarded the "planning baseline" established through the enforcement process.

The Court of Appeal's analysis

Lord Justice Holgate, delivering the leading judgement, traced the statutory framework back to the 1960 Act's inception. Section 3(3) requires site licence applicants to hold express planning permission for caravan site use—a deliberate legislative choice linking the two regimes.

The Court endorsed the principle from R v Kent Justices ex parte Crittenden [1964] 1 QB 144 that site licensing must operate "in harmony" with planning permissions, including their conditions. A site licence cannot enlarge planning permissions or relax their requirements; it merely adds an additional layer of control.

This principle applies equally to enforcement notice determinations. The Court rejected the appellant's argument that "purely planning considerations" must be disregarded in site licensing. Whilst this principle may apply where existing use rights would otherwise be restricted without compensation (as in Esdell Caravan Parks), it cannot operate to circumvent concluded planning enforcement proceedings.

The Court dismissed the appellant's reliance on Class B permitted development rights as "misconceived." If site licences could authorise development inconsistent with underlying planning permissions or enforcement notices, licensees could effectively obtain planning permission without planning merits assessment—contrary to legislative intent. The Class B right must be read contextually within the statutory framework requiring harmony between the regimes.

Lord Justice Holgate emphasised that enforcement notices have prospective effect under section 181 TCPA 1990, continuing to operate against future breaches even after compliance. The appellant's argument that future Class B rights would render enforcement irrational was itself "irrational"—it would allow site licensing to impose conditions generating permitted development rights inconsistent with planning requirements, without opportunity for planning consequences to be considered.

The Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed the appeal, upholding the Upper Tribunal's decision limiting the licence to plots not subject to enforcement action.

Copyright & permissions