If they suspect that planning laws are being breached, the Local Authority can:
- Serve a Planning Contravention Notice on you, seeking information for example as to whether specified activities or uses are being carried out on the land and by whom. It is an offence to fail to comply with such a notice or to give false information
- Serve a Temporary Stop Notice on you if they think there has been a breach of planning control and if they think it is right that the activity should be stopped immediately. A Temporary Stop Notice can prohibit the activity for up to 28 days to give the authorities time to consider whether further enforcement action is appropriate. Failure to comply with a Temporary Stop Notice is a criminal offence.
- Serve an Enforcement Notice on you requiring for example the removal or demolition of the development and the reinstatement of the land, or requiring compliance with conditions, or requiring you to stop certain uses that you are making of the land, all within a certain time. There is a right of appeal and our Planning Law Team can provide advice and assistance in the conduct of an appeal against an Enforcement Notice. Enforcement Notices must be taken seriously as failure to comply with them is a criminal offence. Where you have neglected to appeal against one and the appeal time limit has expired, or you appeal but are not successful, you can be prosecuted.
- Serve a Stop Notice as well as an Enforcement Notice if the Local Planning Authority consider it right than an activity should cease immediately, even before the expiry of the period for compliance with the Enforcement Notice. Failure to comply with a lawfully-served Stop Notice is a criminal offence.
- Serve a Breach of Condition Notice: You may have obtained planning permission for certain building or development works and that planning permission may have had conditions attached to it. If you then fail to comply with the condition it can also lead to the service of a Breach of Condition Notice specifying the steps you must take to comply with the condition. Once again, failure to comply is a criminal offence.
- Apply for a court injunction against you if they think it necessary for any actual or feared breach of planning law to be stopped straight away.
