Cases - Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions v Waltham Forest London Borough Council
Record details
- Name
- Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions v Waltham Forest London Borough Council
- Date
- [2002]
- Citation
- EWCA Civ 330
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Planning control - Use Classes Order 1987
- Summary
-
The proposed use of a large dwellinghouse was for 6 persons recovering from mental ill health living together as a single household with a minimum of one carer. Class C3 of the Use Classes Order 1987 includes use by a family and use by up to 6 persons living as a single household. The change would therefore not fall within the class, as there would be 7 or 8 occupiers including carers. In determining whether the proposed change was material, the inspector compared it with a large family or group of people that might live as a single household in such a dwellinghouse. (There was no evidence as to the number of persons currently occupying the house.)
The Court of Appeal held that the inspector had made an error of law. To interpose a notional permitted use between the existing use and the use applied for is not relevant. Lord Justice Schiemann drew an analogy with intensification. To move from intensity x to 2x may not be a material change of use. Nor to move from 2x to 3x. Nor from 3x to 4x and so on up to infinity. It does not follow that a change from x to 100x is not material.