Coates v The Secretary of State for Communities And Local Government & Anor

There are before the court distinct appeals in relation to two decisions by HHJ Pelling QC sitting as a judge of the High Court in relation to an application under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to quash a decision of a planning inspector (Diane Lewis) appointed by the Secretary of State in relation to a site of some 5.6ha located at Lakeminster Park, Hull Road, Beverley. The inspector’s decision letter is dated 5 September 2014 (“the DL”). The Secretary of State is the first respondent to the appeals. The second respondent (“the Council”) is the local planning authority in relation to the site.

Part of the site has park homes located on it. According to planning permission granted for the site in 2006, the park homes are supposed to be only for holiday use and persons who acquire them also sign licence terms making this clear. Despite this, numbers of the park homes on the site were occupied as full time residences. Eventually, the Council issued enforcement notices to prevent this.

The owner of the site, Lakeminster Park Limited (“Lakeminster”), and some owners of park homes appealed to the Secretary of State against these notices and also sought retrospective planning permission for full-time residential occupation of the park homes. The appeals were first heard at an inquiry before a different inspector in June 2013, leading to decisions dismissing the appeals in July 2013. Those decisions were challenged in court and were quashed, with the appeals being remitted for re-determination.

There was a fresh inquiry in June and July 2014 before a new inspector. By her decision, the inspector upheld the enforcement notices with minor modifications and refused to grant retrospective planning permission for residential use of the park homes.

On 17 October 2014, Lakeminster and Mr Alan Coates, who resided in a park home on the site, issued an application under section 288 of the 1990 Act to quash this new inspector’s decision. When referring to Lakeminster and Mr Coates together, I will call them “the claimants”.

In parallel with the proceedings pursuant to section 288, (a) a criminal prosecution was brought against the controlling shareholder of Lakeminster, a Mr Flannigan, in relation to what was alleged to be fraudulent deception of purchasers of park homes at the site to induce them to believe that they would be entitled to reside full-time in the park homes and (b) claims were advanced by various park home owners, acting pursuant to arrangements with a firm of solicitors called Gosschalks, against other firms of solicitors who were alleged to have given them defective advice when they purchased their park homes.

An application under section 288 is brought by a claim under CPR Part 8. The current position under Part 8 and the relevant Practice Direction is that permission is required to make an application under section 288, in the same way that permission is required to bring a claim for judicial review. But at the time the claimants brought their claim, there was no permission requirement. It was (and is) a requirement under Part 8 that the claim form should state the remedy which the claimant is seeking “and the legal basis for the claim to that remedy” (CPR Part 8.2(b)(ii)).

The position of the Council and the Secretary of State was that the claim form issued by the claimants did not set out any proper or sustainable basis for the relief claimed. Nor had any witness statement been served by the claimants in support of their claim from which the grounds of claim might be discerned. The Council therefore issued an application on 24 February 2015 under CPR Part 3.4 to strike out the claim on the basis that the claimants’ statement of case disclosed no reasonable grounds for bringing the claim. The Council’s application was supported by the Secretary of State.

The Council’s strike out application came on for hearing before the judge on 14 April 2015. The claimants were represented at the hearing by Mr Clive Wolman of counsel. The Secretary of State and the Council also appeared by counsel. The judge made two rulings on that day. In the first ruling, he held that the claim form did not set out any proper grounds for relief and indicated that, subject to any application by the claimants to amend, it would be struck out. As the judge found, the claim form did not plead the points on which the claimants in fact wished to rely, as explained to him by Mr Wolman during the hearing, and instead pleaded points on which they did not wish to rely. No complaint is made about that ruling on this appeal. It is accepted that the claim form as it stands does not disclose reasonable grounds for bringing the claim and, if unamended, was properly to be struck out.

However, the judge did not strike out the claimants’ claim there and then. Instead, he allowed the claimants and their counsel a short time to decide what to do, and in particular to decide whether to seek an adjournment to allow time for them to produce an amended statement of grounds. We were told that the court reconvened after about 10 minutes. We were not told whether this was because the judge was only prepared to allow that amount of time or because that was all the time that Mr Wolman required with his clients to decide what to do. Mr Wolman had already spent part of the first hearing explaining to the judge the substantive points on which the claimants would wish to rely in support of their claim: see para. [34] of the judge’s first ruling of 14 April 2015.

Mr Wolman applied for an adjournment for a few days in which to plead amended grounds of claim and explained the two points which he said the claimants would wish to plead as amended grounds. In the judge’s second ruling on 14 April 2015, he refused the application for an adjournment. He did so on the basis that the two proposed amended grounds had no real prospect of success, so an adjournment would serve no useful purpose. The first proposed ground was that the condition in the 2006 planning permission and in the licences granted to park home owners requiring that park homes should only be occupied for holiday use was ambiguous and unclear. The judge held that there was no ambiguity. The second proposed ground was that the inspector should not have proceeded on the basis of a statement of common ground agreed by all parties at the inquiry (including Lakeminster and Mr Coates) that the planning permission granted in 2006 extinguished any subsisting use rights with the result that there was no fall-back position for planning purposes.

On this appeal, again, it is not submitted that the judge erred in his assessment on the basis of the materials and submissions before him that both the proposed amended grounds were arguments without any prospect of success. It is accepted that they did not constitute arguable grounds of claim. Nonetheless, it is submitted that the judge acted unfairly and precipitately in refusing the adjournment, which if granted would have allowed the claimants to amend to plead other grounds of challenge to the inspector’s decision (not put before the judge) which would have been meritorious and would have had a real prospect of success.

The consequence of the two rulings made by the judge on 14 April 2015 was that the claimants’ claim was struck out. This is the first decision (“the April decision”) which is under appeal to this court, pursuant to a first notice of appeal issued by the claimants.

Some months after the claim was struck out, the claimants also made an application back to the judge pursuant to CPR Part 3.1(7). That provision sets out a general power for the court to vary or revoke an order. By this application, the claimants asked the judge to revisit his decision to strike out the claim. Lakeminster was again represented by Mr Wolman. Mr Coates was represented by Mr Richard Wald of counsel. This application was heard in October 2015 and led to a further decision of the judge, dated 6 November 2015 (“the November decision”), in which he dismissed this application. This is the second decision under appeal to this court, pursuant to a further notice of appeal.

In the November decision, the judge correctly directed himself by reference to the leading authority of Tibbles v SIG Plc [2012] EWCA Civ 518. He reviewed six new grounds of claim which the claimants proposed to advance if permitted to amend their Part 8 claim form and dismissed each of them, either because they impermissibly undermined the principle of finality in litigation which was (in line with Tibbles) to be accorded great weight in relation to an application under CPR Part 3.1(7) or because they were unarguable, or both. It is unnecessary to review all six proposed grounds, because it is now accepted that the judge was right to dismiss three of them. I discuss the remaining three below.

The appeals were originally brought by both Lakeminster and Mr Coates. Permission to bring the appeals was granted by Lindblom LJ. Lindblom LJ also considered an application by the claimants to adduce further evidence in the appeals. He dismissed that application on the papers. The application was renewed at an oral hearing before me on 3 February 2017, and I too dismissed it: [2017] EWCA Civ 371.

The criminal trial of Mr Flannigan commenced in May 2017. The prosecution witnesses gave their evidence and were cross-examined. As summarised by the trial judge, HHJ Watson, the defence case centred around the suggestion that each of the purchasers of park homes at the site did in fact know of the “holiday” provision in relation to their park homes and that what was said to them by Mr Flannigan as to the nature of permitted occupancy was not false and was entirely in keeping with the planning permission granted by the Council in 2006: see para. [4] of HHJ Watson’s ruling of 3 April 2017 on Mr Flannigan’s submission of no case to answer. On 3 April 2017, HHJ Watson ruled that there was no case to answer in relation to all but one of the counts against Mr Flannigan, and that even that count could not be allowed to proceed to trial as formulated.

On 26 May 2017, the claimants issued a further application to adduce further evidence on appeal. The further evidence was filed with the application, but no explanation was given of why it was said that it would be right for this court to admit the further evidence. The further evidence relates to the appeal against the judge’s November decision. Its admission is opposed by the Secretary of State and the Council. Some of the further evidence is material derived from the criminal trial of Mr Flannigan, which was not available at the time of the November decision. However, the Secretary of State and the Council say that the further evidence is not of a character which could have had any bearing on the conclusions reached by the judge in the November decision and that it should not, therefore, be admitted on the appeal.

Shortly before the hearing before us, Lakeminster withdrew its appeals. Accordingly, the appeals proceeded as appeals by Mr Coates alone. Mr Coates also pursued the application to admit further evidence. On 19 June 2017, Mr Coates served a supplementary skeleton argument setting out submissions why he contends it would be right for this court to give permission for the further evidence to be admitted.

At the hearing before us, Mr Coates was represented by Mr De Souza and Mr Newman (who did not appear below), who shared the oral advocacy between them. The court indicated that it would look at the proposed new evidence de bene esse and would give a ruling on its admission as part of the judgment on the appeals: see below.

As explained to us by Mr De Souza and Mr Newman, the grounds of appeal which remain live before us are as follows. In relation to the April decision, the sole ground of appeal is that it is said that the judge erred in refusing to grant the claimants an adjournment to allow them to re-plead their claim. In relation to the November decision, the following three grounds of appeal are relied on, in relation to grounds of application to the judge under CPR Part 3.1(7) and dismissed by him:

Mr Coates’s application before us to adduce further evidence in support of his appeal against the November decision relates to each of these three grounds of appeal, as follows:

The decision of the inspector, as set out in the DL, is long and thorough. The salient points for present purposes are as follows.

The principal relevant planning history of the authorised use part of the site goes back to 1979, when permission was granted for the siting of caravans for holiday use and the storage of caravans on a defined area; subsequent permissions allowed for an expansion of that area and for its use for placing transportable holiday homes; planning conditions in relation to the static and touring caravans controlled the length of occupation and required that they be used as holiday homes (DL para. 8).

The immediate background to the enforcement notices which are the subject of the present proceedings is set out at DL para. 9:

“In November 2006 planning permission was granted for the change of use of the land from the siting of touring and static caravans and caravan storage to the siting of 169 park homes for holiday use together with associated landscaping. Condition 9 stated that the park homes shall be occupied for holiday purposes only. Condition 10 stated that the park homes shall not be occupied as a person’s sole or main place of residence. Condition 11 required the site owner/operator to maintain an up to date register of the names of all owners/occupiers of individual park homes and of their main address. The same reason was given for each condition – to ensure that the approved holiday accommodation is not used for unauthorised permanent residential purposes. The Council understood that the work which took place on the site related to that permission. In 2011 planning contravention notices were served as part of an investigation over permanent residential occupation of the park homes. The investigation was prompted by representations on a planning application to extend the tourist accommodation at Lakeminster Park.”

The works at the site carried out by Lakeminster involved laying out roads and certain facilities and installing substantial park homes. From about 2008 these were sold to members of the public. Mr Coates purchased his park home at the site in 2008. In many or all cases, the owners of park homes signed licence terms which reflected the conditions regarding holiday use as set out in the 2006 planning permission.

Despite this, a number of owners of park homes treated them as their full-time residences and did not abide by the planning permission and licence conditions. Those who did so paid full council tax to the Council, reflecting their full-time residency at their park homes, of which the Council was aware.

On 6 September 2012 the Council issued enforcement notice EN2 and enforcement notice EN3. The breach of planning control alleged in notice EN2 was, “without planning permission the siting of caravans on the Land for permanent residential occupation as a sole or main place of residence”. The notice required cessation of the use of any caravan on the Land for permanent residential occupation as a sole or main place of residence and removal of the caravan from the Land.

The breach of planning control alleged in notice EN3 was, “without planning permission the material change of use of the Land from land for the storage of caravans and the siting of touring and static caravans for holiday use to use for the siting of caravans for permanent residential occupation and in addition, and without planning permission, unauthorised operational development comprising the following – (i) the construction of roads and paths, and (ii) development in association with and facilitating occupation of the caravans as a main place of residence, namely the construction and erection of decking, steps, railing, partitions, screening, hardstanding and paving, storage cabins, sheds and other domestic paraphernalia.” The notice required cessation of use of the Land and caravans for permanent residential use and removal of the caravans from the Land, together with the decking, steps and so forth.

In substance, the complaint was that Lakeminster had laid out the caravan site as a residential village and that owners of the park homes there had been occupying them as their main or sole residences, in breach of planning control. The inspector found that the development constituted a caravan site for permanent residential occupation by the settled population there (who were not travellers): DL para. 28.

At the time of the inquiry, there were 78 park homes on the site. The inspector considered and rejected an argument that all the land at the site constituted previously developed land (“PDL”), as was asserted by the claimants to be the case on a particular basis, finding that only about 14% of the land at the site had that status: DL paras. 24 and 35. This PDL argument is different from the PDL argument based on the witness statement of Mr Rushworth considered by the judge in his November decision which is relevant to Ground (i) of the appeal in relation to that decision. That new PDL argument was not presented at the inquiry.

The inspector found that the development of the site conflicted with the development plan and local planning policy: DL paras. 37 and 40-56. In particular, it conflicted with policy concerns to limit the scale of development in areas not designated for housing development and to protect the countryside. The inspector also found that the development did not constitute sustainable development, in that by reason, in particular, of absence of infrastructure and suitable design it did not result in an overall net positive contribution in economic, social and environmental terms: DL paras. 37 and 57-139. Ultimately, therefore, Lakeminster and the residents had to rely on their human rights arguments based on Article 8 and Article 1 of Protocol 1 to the ECHR (right to protection of property) if their appeals were to succeed: DL paras. 140-144.

The inspector considered the position under Article 8 at DL paras. 146-235. Although she recognised that if the appeals were dismissed the consequences for the residents would be very serious, in that they would have to cease living at the site and would have to remove their park homes, which means that their Convention rights were engaged (DL para. 147), she rejected the claimants’ case based on Article 8. The inspector correctly recognised that she should take account of the Convention rights of all residents, even if they did not take part in the inquiry process (DL para. 147). She held that the interference with the residents’ rights would be justified and proportionate and would strike a fair balance between the public interest and individual rights: DL para. 235.

The inspector correctly directed her assessment under Article 8 by reference to relevant authority. She noted that the information in relation to each household was different and in some cases there was none: DL paras. 151-152. She correctly noted, in line with guidance given in Stevens v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government [2013] EWHC 792 (Admin), that her assessment could only be made on the basis of the evidence available - and this was in fact generally agreed at the inquiry: DL para. 151. It was not appropriate for the inspector to speculate about the position of residents, beyond taking account of the obvious impact upon them if the appeals were dismissed (DL paras. 147 and 153-181). An important consideration was that alternative accommodation would be available to displaced residents within a reasonable period, if necessary through the provision of social housing: DL paras. 162-172.

The inspector was careful to engage in individual structured assessments of the position under Article 8, where she had evidence before her to enable her to do that: DL paras. 182-234. In the context of those assessments, where evidence was available, the inspector looked more closely at the individuals’ knowledge about the “holiday only” conditions attaching to the park homes when they acquired them, and took that into account when assessing the question of fair balance in each case.

For instance, in Mr Coates’s case, she found that he “clearly was aware of occupancy restrictions that applied to park home sites” and that, in view of his professional background as an accountant and the financial importance of the purchase, it was surprising that he made no further inquiries before acquiring his park home, with the result that his case on interference with his human rights “is slightly reduced” (DL para. 189). His private interests were outweighed by substantial harm to the public interest if planning controls were not enforced: DL paras. 191-192. At DL 191 the inspector wrote:

“On the other side of the balance Lakeminster Park is a sizeable residential development in the countryside, in a location that is not supported by planning policies that seek to direct housing to more sustainable locations. The development of the site has widened the choice of homes in the Beverley area and provides accommodation suited to the housing needs and wishes of Mr and Mrs Coates and other residents who chose to live there. However, the scheme has not attained the necessary standard of design and amenity for all existing and future occupants. The scheme has not responded to a pressing social need as a result of a failure, without sound justification, to include or provide for affordable housing. The community’s need for more homes, including more accommodation to meet the particular needs of the elderly, is able to be provided in more appropriate locations identified through the development plan process. The objective of securing sustainable development has not been achieved and core planning principles have not been met to the detriment of the public interest. The harm is substantial.”

There is nothing in the structured assessment for Mr Coates which suggests that his awareness of the usual position in relation to park homes or his failure to obtain advice at the time of the purchase of his park home was a critical feature of the Article 8 assessment. That is also borne out by consideration of the way in which the inspector carried out the other individual structured assessments. For example, in the case of Mr Aldcroft, who is elderly and unwell, the inspector found that loss of his home would cause him and his wife severe distress (DL paras. 193-195); he was unaware of the planning restrictions when he bought his park home and would not have purchased it if he had known; and she was not critical of him for failing to obtain legal advice at the time (DL para. 197). Yet the public interest in upholding planning controls meant that the interference with his Article 8 rights would be proportionate and justified: DL para. 198. As another example, in the case of Mr and Mrs Hartley, the inspector made no findings that they were aware of the planning restrictions when they purchased their property and made no criticism of them in relation to a failure to seek advice; found that interference with their Article 8 rights would be serious; yet still found that the interference would be justified by the public interest factors she identified: DL paras. 216-217. The judge gave further examples of similar individual cases dealt with in the DL in his November decision: see [35].

It clearly emerges from consideration of the DL as a whole, and from the individual structured assessments in particular, that the knowledge (or absence of knowledge) on the part of residents of the planning restrictions when they acquired their park homes and the issue of whether they had sought legal advice and what advice they had received were not significant matters affecting the overall conclusion of the inspector that to uphold the enforcement notices and to refuse retrospective planning permission would not violate anyone’s rights under Article 8. Rather, the critical points in the inspector’s assessment were the substantial harm to the public interest arising from the breach of planning controls by a non-sustainable residential development in the open countryside coupled with the availability of alternative accommodation options for the residents.

This reading of the DL is underlined by the observations of the inspector at DL paras. 158-160, in commenting on the factors of lack of knowledge by residents of the planning status of the site and the failure to take legal advice. She found that “most, if not all, the residents could not have known the development as a whole was in breach of planning control … Therefore the unauthorised nature of the scheme and each park home does not make their position less strong” (DL para. 158). In assessing the submission of the Council that the failure by residents to take legal advice regarding restrictions on their occupancy of their park homes “was a serious omission in protecting their own interests” (DL para. 160), the inspector said, “In general terms I am cautious about the level of significance attributed by the Council to the failure to take legal advice, but the facts and particular circumstances in individual cases vary” (DL para. 160). She went on in DL para. 160 to discount the Council’s argument that individuals did not act reasonably in failing to seek legal advice, saying:

“I doubt whether in most cases it was quite so clear cut because the witness statements show events, advice and timing varied in the lead up to the purchase or point of no return. Nevertheless an individual’s own decisions and conduct is a consideration and some responsibility has to lie with the home owner or occupier, especially given the factors that they rely on”.

This last reference to “the factors that they rely on” is to the factors which those individual residents who gave evidence or made representations at the inquiry referred to as being relevant in their cases, and leads in to the inspector’s structured assessments under Article 8 in those individual cases. The point being made by the inspector in DL para. 160 is that she would not treat failure to take advice as a significant factor in general or in relation to residents about whom she did not have detailed information, but might have regard to it in relation to individual structured assessments. As noted above, she did do that, but even there accorded no significant (let alone decisive) weight in those assessments to a failure to take legal advice.

The inspector emphasised the lack of significance of that factor in DL para. 161, where having just discounted the significance of seeking or not seeking legal advice as a factor in DL para. 160, she said:

“The main factors affecting an individual’s or family’s interests and the seriousness of the interference are most likely to be centred on alternative accommodation, vulnerability (including health and well-being), community spirit and friendships, and safety and security. The following general observations and conclusions [sc. on alternative accommodation, at DL paras. 162-172, health and well-being, at DL paras. 173-175, and community spirit and security, at DL para. 176] will inform the individual assessments.”

The inspector was aware that 59 owners/occupiers of park homes at the site had instructed Gosschalks in connection with civil claims for losses arising out of misrepresentation by Lakeminster “and professional negligence by solicitors involved during the purchase of the park homes” (DL para. 7; she had received a letter from Gosschalks dated 19 June 2014 informing her about this). She therefore knew that some residents appeared to have taken legal advice when they purchased their park homes, about which they were unhappy. In the absence of evidence from them she had no more information than that. The inspector said, “This matter is relevant to these appeals only in so far as it may have affected the community spirit at the development and because the Council referred to the Gosschalks litigation as part of its case on human rights” (DL para 7). Similarly, at DL para. 160 she said: “I am conscious of the separate litigation being pursued …” - that is to say, by the residents who had instructed Gosschalks – and emphasised that “the approach I will adopt will focus very specifically on the human rights considerations”. This she duly did, without speculating about what legal advice residents who did not give evidence or make representations at the inquiry might have received and how it might have affected their decision-making processes when they acquired their park homes.

In my view, the inspector was entirely correct to proceed in this way, both because it would have been inappropriate to speculate about matters not in evidence before her and because the absence of advice and the quality of advice were not critical or decisive points affecting her conclusion in relation to Article 8.

Finally in the DL, the inspector considered the arguments based on Article 1 of Protocol 1: DL paras. 236-252. I mention this only for completeness, because the relevant argument before the judge and before us in relation to Ground (ii) was based on Article 8 rather than on Article 1 of Protocol 1: see para. [26] of the November decision and paras. 18 and 48 of Mr Coates’s skeleton argument for the appeal (albeit in parts of his argument on Ground (ii) he also makes reference to comments by the inspector in this section of the DL), and that is how the oral argument was presented to us by counsel for Mr Coates. In the context of Article 1 of Protocol 1, the inspector was prepared to give more weight to residents’ failure to take legal advice, as “a serious failure by them to take steps to avoid placing their property at risk” (DL para. 240). On a fair reading of the DL, this is a reference to the significance of this factor in those individual cases where evidence about this was available for the purposes of the structured assessments previously carried out by the inspector. In the following para. 241, the inspector emphasises that this was what she was talking about: “I have considered the rights of Mr Coates and every individual resident within the limits of the information and evidence provided through the appeals.” At DL para. 247, the inspector again emphasises that her focus has been on proportionality assessments in individual cases (a point also emphasised at DL para. 248), and expresses severe reservations about an aggregate approach as had been urged by the claimants to take all the residents together, despite the variations in individual circumstances and the absence of evidence in many cases; but the inspector stated that “the public interest arguments are very strong”, so even on an aggregate approach the public interest prevailed over the Convention rights of residents. This again shows that the precise circumstances in which a resident acquired their park home, and the absence of advice or the nature of the advice received, were not significant or critical features in arriving at the relevant balance and conclusions regarding the proportionality of the interference with Convention rights.

At DL para. 251 the inspector states that “The failure to seek legal advice is very relevant …”, but in context it is again clear that she is speaking about the position considered in the individual structured assessments, where she had evidence before her. This is not a statement about residents who did not participate in the inquiry. Their position was addressed briefly in DL para. 252, where the inspector simply noted, “The rights of other residents on the site, who do not wish to be associated with the [claimants’] case, also have to be recognised”, before arriving at her overall conclusion that the dismissal of the appeals would be proportionate and necessary and would strike a fair balance.

I have already sufficiently explained the April decision in the introduction, above.

In the November decision, the judge dismissed the first relevant new proposed ground of claim (based on a new argument that the site constituted previously developed land: see Ground (i) above) for two reasons. First, for reasons explained by the judge at [11]-[14], the primary evidence on which the claimants sought to rely for their new argument (in particular, the witness statement of Mr Rushworth), could with reasonable diligence have been discovered by those who acted for the claimants in the appeal to the inspector or by the time of the hearing of the Council’s strike out application in April 2015. Applying the guidance in Tibbles, in these circumstances it was not appropriate to re-open the April decision on the basis of this new evidence.

Secondly, and in any event, the point was unarguable on the merits: [15]. The placing of landfill on the site did not turn it into previously developed land, as defined in Annex 2 to the National Planning Policy Framework (“NPPF”), because the landfill had been placed on the site in circumstances “where provision for restoration has been made through development control procedures”, as a condition attached to a previous planning permission which provided for restoration. In the judge’s view, the fact that the restoration condition had not been complied with was beside the point for present purposes.

The submission of the claimants to the judge in relation to the second relevant new proposed ground of claim (in relation to legal advice obtained by residents who did not participate in the inquiry: Ground (ii) above), was presented by reference to their rights under Article 8: see para. [26] in the November decision. The judge dismissed this proposed new ground of claim on the basis that it disclosed no arguable grounds of challenge to the inspector’s decision: [26]-[38]. He set out DL para. 160 and referred to the way in which the inspector had dealt with the Article 8 claims at the inquiry, and held that on a proper reading of the DL “It is entirely clear … that the inspector considered the impact of legal advice only in relation to those particular individuals who appeared at the inquiry and had not obtained legal advice before proceeding and did not reject any of the Article 8 claims on the basis that a resident could have taken legal advice and by failing to do so failed to protect their own interests” ([32]). The judge concluded that this new ground of claim was unarguable, because the DL showed “very clearly that the Article 8 assessment would have been no different whether or not the inspector had known that most of the residents who did not appear at the inquiry had taken legal advice before purchasing park homes at the site and were planning to sue their former solicitors”; it was obvious that whatever the position about legal advice received by residents who did not participate in the inquiry, the proportionality assessment in favour of enforcement of planning controls would have been the same ([36]). The proposed ground of challenge therefore had no realistic prospect of success.

The judge dismissed the third relevant new proposed ground of claim (based on payment of council tax by the residents: Ground (iii) above), for two reasons: [16]-[20]. First, the fact that the residents had been paying full council tax was already known by the time of the inquiry (as was noted by the inspector at DL para. 159), so the claimants were or ought reasonably to have been aware of the point by the time of the hearing in April 2015, at which time they could and should have raised it as an argument to resist the striking out of their claim. Since they had had a reasonable opportunity to put forward that ground at that time but had failed to do so, it was not appropriate to re-open the April decision pursuant to their application under CPR Part 3.1(7) to allow them to take it at this later stage.

Secondly, the judge held that this ground was also substantively unarguable as a matter of law. Although it was said that by accepting payment of council tax and then taking enforcement proceedings the Council “was impermissibly approbating and reprobating”, as the point was explained to the judge it seems it was put more as a matter of legitimate expectation – i.e. that by demanding and accepting the payment of council tax, the Council created a legitimate expectation on the part of the residents that it would not enforce the restrictions on use of the park homes contained in the planning permission: [17]. The judge held that this was unarguable, because there was no unequivocal and unqualified assurance, of a type which would be required to engage the law of legitimate expectation, to the effect that no enforcement action would be taken, which could be spelled out of the Council’s conduct: [19].

I agree.

I also agree.