Titchfield Festival Theatre Ltd v. Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government – Awaiting Judgment in the Court of Appeal

Megan Thomas KC represented the Theatre who had expanded their premises into an adjoining building without planning permission and had lost an Enforcement Notice Appeal in front of an Inspector.  The Court of Appeal considered the scope of section 57(4) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 which allows a developer to revert back to the last previous use before an Enforcement Notice was issued, without needing to obtain express planning permission to do so.  The issue was whether the right only applied if the whole of the land enforced against had previously enjoyed that use, rather than just a part of it.

A second issue related to whether lawful existing use rights in one part of the building had been extinguished merely because the planning unit was ‘new’ in the sense that it was larger than before.