Soon after Dover District Council had demolished my home they took action against me to remove the mobile home, which had been legally sited before the bungalow was demolished, thereby continuing uninterrupted the lawful residential use of the land. The Council unlawfully issued an enforcement notice on the 27 February 1990, ordering its removal.

In a Committee Report dated 7 Sept 1989 DDC reported that when they demolished my bungalow they noticed a mobile home was stationed in my garden. In their report the Council wrongly stated:

“Such use of the land also required planning permission, which had not been obtained”.

But the mobile home did not require planning permission, and the Council took unlawful action against me despite its own legal department providing the following advice in a memo dated 22 August 1989:

“A mobile home/caravan with wheels is not a structure and therefore the placing of such items on land cannot constitute operational development. Operational development required pp regardless of the use intended to be made of the land or the building intended to be constructed.

It follows that planning control of the placing of a mobile home/caravan on land depends solely upon establishing that a material change of use has occurred.

It is arguable that existing residential use rights have existed on the site since pre-1963 and have continued since the end of 1963 and that the demolition of the rebuilt structure does not evidence an abandonment of those use rights. An EN may therefore be challenged on the ground that the caravan is being used for residential purposes, and this does not constitute a material change of use by reason that the site has the benefit of existing residential use rights”.

It was held by the Court of Appeal (Wealden DC v S of S 1987) that the stationing of a caravan on land did not of itself establish a material change of use. The Notice must also state the use to which the caravan is put. If that use is ancillary or incidental to the primary use of the land, then no change of use occurs at all… 

The use of the mobile home was ancillary or incidental to the primary use of the land i.e. residential. Therefore planning permission was not required and an enforcement notice should never have been served.  

Clearly and without doubt there had been no change of use whatsoever and there is irrefutable evidence proving that the property had been used continuously as a lawful residence since 1928. 

Further evidence that the residential use had not ceased was contained in a letter dated 8^th October 1984 from Lesley Cumberland, Director of Legal and Administrative Services in which she stated:  

...“I have conferred with the Director of Planning on the alleged statement that the residential use of the site may have ended, and I can confirm that the Council are not saying that the residential user rights have been abandoned, only that the operation carried out on site is, as a matter of fact and degree, a building operation and thereby constitutes development requiring planning permission”...

Further evidence of the lawful residential use is contained in the report from the Council’s own Professional Standards Investigator when he stated in section 3.32:

“Taking into account the Planning Inspectors findings in November 2000, the Head of Legal Services advice to the complainant’s solicitor in her letter of 8^th October 1984, the evidence provided by the next door neighbours and the undisputed evidence that between June 25^th 1984 and 31^st July 1989 the complainant and his family lived at the Oaks, it is my view that there is a record of residential use of the site from 1928 to 31^st July 1989”.