Huang Binbin v Vale of White Horse: High Court upholds decision not to enforce against former coal yard site

The High Court has dismissed a judicial review challenge brought by Huang Binbin, a co-owner of Wick Hall, against Vale of White Horse District Council's decision to take no enforcement action at the Former Coal Yard, Thrupp Lane, Radley, Abingdon. The judgement, handed down on 2 June 2026 by Dan Kolinsky KC sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, rejected both grounds of challenge.

The site had been used as a coal yard under a 1957 planning permission. That use ceased around 2009, after which a range of commercial activities moved in without express planning permission. By the time of the council's assessment, the site accommodated six separate businesses: open vehicle storage, refrigerated trailer hire, fencing and shed distribution, a concrete supply operation, second-hand agricultural equipment storage, and a waste transfer and recycling facility operated by Oxford Skip Hire Limited (OSHL).

The central question in the first ground was whether the council had lawfully determined that the current mixed use did not constitute a material change of use from the lawful coal yard use. Applying the analytical framework from the House of Lords' decision in Westminster City Council v British Waterway Board [1985] AC 676, the court found that the council had correctly identified the character of the former coal yard use and made a rational comparison with the present activities. The deputy judge noted that the coal yard would itself have involved open yard storage, HGV movements, loading and unloading of bulk goods, processing, and the use of moveable concrete dividers -- characteristics sufficiently similar to those of the current occupants.

The claimant had relied heavily on witness evidence from a noise and air quality consultant, Mr Nigel Mann, who argued the council had failed adequately to assess the differences in noise and dust impacts between the two uses. The court gave that evidence limited weight, noting that it had not been before the council when the decision was made, and that permission to adduce expert evidence in judicial review proceedings had not been sought. More fundamentally, the deputy judge held that a strongly held professional disagreement did not constitute an error of established fact within the principles set out in E v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2004] QB 1044.

The claimant also argued that the council had been wrong to diverge from Oxfordshire County Council's assessment as waste authority, which had characterised OSHL's activities as causing an unacceptable adverse impact on residential amenity. The court rejected an invitation to treat OCC's position as analogous to a statutory consultee with specialist authority, as discussed by the Court of Appeal in R (Wyatt) v Fareham Borough Council [2023] PTSR 1952. The analogy was found to be inapt: OCC had been evaluating a different planning unit and a different alleged breach, and the council was entitled -- indeed required -- to conduct its own assessment.

On the second ground, which concerned the expediency of enforcement action, the deputy judge found the challenge to be largely parasitic on the first. The council's conclusion that the current use was no more harmful in planning terms than the previous lawful coal yard use rendered enforcement action inexpedient. The absence of hour-of-operation conditions in the original 1957 permission, combined with protections under OSHL's environmental permit, meant there was no obvious gap requiring separate enforcement consideration.

The judgement is a reminder of the width of the discretion conferred on local planning authorities by section 172(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, and the high threshold that claimants must meet to displace an authority's enforcement assessment, particularly where the evidential baseline is limited by the passage of time.

Huang Binbin, R (on the application of) v Vale of White Horse District Council & Ors [2026] EWHC 1312 (Admin). Andrew Byass (Taylor Wessing LLP) for the claimant; Emma Dring for the defendant.