Haulier loses ground on question of use
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HAULIER'S appeal against Maidstone Borough Council's planning nforcement notice requiring the company to stop using its The site was vacant for three rears from 1968 and had then been used for other activities, together with a further period of vacancy until the company resumed the established use in 1979.
The inspector concluded that the established use had been abandoned and the present use as a transport depot was a material change which needed planning permission which had not been obtained.
Mr Justice Glydewell said the occupant of premises could revert to any previous lawful use without obtaining fresh planning permission whether or not the previous lawful use immediately preceded the unlawful use provided it had not in the meantime been adandoned.
If there was a change from a lawful to an unlawful use and an enforcement notice was served, the planning authority could not say the previous use had thereby been abandoned.
Subject to the question of abandonment, the company was therefore entitled to go back as far as it liked to find a previous lawful use. But there was a binding authority that a lawful use existing before 1948 could in law be abandoned. In this case the combination of no use and successive changes of use could be taken as showing the haulage use had been abandoned.