Cases - Rawlins v Secretary of State for the Environment
Record details
- Name
- Rawlins v Secretary of State for the Environment
- Date
- [1990]
- Citation
- 1 PLR 110
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Planning control - Town and Country Planning Act 1990
- Summary
-
Travelling showmen and their families had placed caravans, fairground rides and equipment, machinery and vehicles upon agricultural land in the green belt. A road and hardstandings had been constructed. The planning authority served enforcement notices, each of which related to the site as one unit. The development had been carried out as a concerted whole and was in common ownership until individual plots were sold at the time of the enforcement notices. Many of the plots remained undivided and not clearly defined. The notices were challenged on the ground that they were not served on the 'owner and occupier of the land' (i.e. each plot) as required by the 1990 Act.
The Court of Appeal dismissed the challenge. The case had exceptional features which justified the less usual procedure adopted. The Court was not setting aside the existing long-established practice of issuing enforcement notices on a planning unit. If there was a possibility of injustice an inspector would have power to vary the notice, split it up or even exclude the land of the affected occupier altogether.