High Court dismisses Canham's challenge over Ladstone Park caravan enforcement

The High Court has dismissed a judicial review claim brought against Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council over its refusal to take planning enforcement action against a caravan park development adjoining a Grade II listed farmhouse, resolving a dispute that had prompted the council to reconsider its position on four separate occasions.

In R (Canham) v Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council [2026] EWHC 1893 (Admin), Mr Justice Swift rejected all grounds advanced on behalf of Aaron Scott Canham, owner of Upper Butterworth End near Sowerby, in a claim concerning three concrete plinths built at Ladstone Park, a licensed caravan site, close to the boundary of his property.

The dispute centred on a park home sited on one of the plinths, known as plot 9, in January 2025, followed by the addition of a brick skirt, patio, replacement steps and railings in February and March that year. Mr Canham argued that the council's decision not to pursue enforcement action was flawed, first because the plinths, built between 2020 and 2021, ought not to have been treated as substantially complete and therefore immune from enforcement under the four year time limit in section 171B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, given the later works undertaken once the park home arrived.

Mr Justice Swift disagreed, finding that the council's officers had been entitled, as a matter of fact and evaluation, to treat the plinths as a distinct building operation completed by 2021, separate from the later aesthetic additions carried out once the home was installed. He drew on the House of Lords' reasoning in Sage v Secretary of State for the Environment and the Court of Appeal's judgement in Devine v Secretary of State for Levelling Up, both of which confirmed that identifying the relevant building operation and its completion date is a question of fact for the decision maker.

The judgement also addressed whether the park home itself qualified as a caravan under the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 and the Caravan Sites Act 1968, a question raised by Holgate LJ when granting permission to proceed. Mr Justice Swift accepted the council's conclusion that the unit remained capable of being moved by road, rejecting the claimant's argument that this required the removal of part of the brick skirt built around it, and finding no basis to read the statutory definition more restrictively than its plain wording allowed.

On the council's decision not to take enforcement action over the 2025 additions themselves, the judge held that the brick skirt fell within permitted development rights as a means of enclosure, applying the Divisional Court's reasoning in Prengate Properties Ltd v Secretary of State for the Environment, and that the council had properly weighed the remaining works in the round when concluding enforcement would not be expedient.

Finally, the claimant's allegation of apparent bias, based on the same council officers having been involved in successive decisions as the dispute evolved, was rejected. Mr Justice Swift held that the principles governing apparent bias apply only to adjudicative decisions, and that issuing an enforcement notice under section 172 of the 1990 Act does not fall into that category, distinguishing the position from planning committee decisions considered in earlier authorities such as R (Lewis) v Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council. In any event, he found that officers reconsidering earlier conclusions in light of new evidence and legal argument was unremarkable and properly reasoned throughout.

While granting permission for the claimant's re-amended grounds to be argued, the court ultimately refused the application for judicial review in its entirety.