Source: https://www.landmarkchambers.co.uk/people/richard-langham/
Timestamp: 2019-09-20 18:13:08
Document Index: 11562018

Matched Legal Cases: ['EWCA ', 'EWCA ', 'EWCA ', 'EWCA ', 'EWCA ', 'EWCA ', 'EWCA ', 'EWCA ', 'EWCA ', 'EWCA ']

Richard Langham - Landmark Chambers | Barristers Chambers LondonLandmark Chambers | Barristers Chambers London
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Email: rlangham@landmarkchambers.co.uk
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Highways, footpaths and utilities
Waltham Forest LBC v Secretary of State [2002] EWCA Civ 330, [2002] JPL 1093
Hall v Hillingdon LBC [2015] UKUT 606
Franks v SSCLG [2015] EWHC 3690
R (Larkfleet) v South Kesteven District Council [2015] EWCA 887 (Civ)
R (Trustees of the Cecil Family Trust) v South Kesteven District Council [2015] EWHC 1978 (Admin)
Hemming v Birmingham City Council [2015] EWHC 1472 (Admin)
Hannan v Newham London Borough Council [2014] EWHC 1424 (Admin)
R (Baker) v BANES (no.3) [2013] EWHC 946 (Admin)
Silverman v Highways Agency (High Wycombe Magistrates Court)
Broxbourne BC v Robb [2011] EWHC 1626 QB; [2011] EWCA 1355 (Civ)
Bracknell Forest DC v Reed and Keeling (Reading Crown Court)
Taunton Deane BC v Packman [2010] EWHC 2437 QB
R (Baker) v Bath and NE Somerset Council and Hinton Organics (no 2) – [2009] EWHC 3320 Admin
R (Baker) v Bath and NE Somerset Council and Hinton Organics [2009] EWHC 595 Admin, [2009] JPL 1498
R (JC Decaux) v Wandsworth LBC [2009] EWHC 129 Admin
South Cambridgeshire District Council v Price [2008] EWHC 1234 QB
McCarthy v Secretary of State and South Cambridgeshire DC [2006] EWHC 3287 Admin
South Cambridgeshire District Council v Flynn [2006] EWHC 1320 QB, [2007] JPL 440
Mid Bedfordshire District Council v Brown (no 2) [2006] EWHC 1362 QB
First Secretary of State v Chichester DC [2004] EWCA Civ 1248, [2005] 1 WLR 279
South Cambridgeshire District Council v Persons Unknown [2004] EWCA Civ 1280, [2005] JPL 680
R (Maiden Outdoor Advertising) v Lambeth LBC [2003] EWHC 1224 Admin, [2004] JPL 820
R (Decra Plastics) v Waltham Forest LBC [2002] EWHC 2718 Admin
Richard Langham specialises in town and country planning, highways law, environmental law and compulsory purchase and compensation.
He regularly appears at public inquiries, in the High Court and the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber), acting for local authorities, commercial litigants, amenity groups and individuals. He is qualified to accept public access instructions.
Richard’s practice covers all aspects of planning law. He has appeared at numerous public inquiries, including recently appeals concerning major housing developments, gypsy sites (see below), seasonal caravan sites, waste transfer and disposal sites and retail and leisure developments. Richard is often instructed in s288/289 challenges and judicial reviews of local authority decisions. He acted for the successful claimant in R (Langley Park School for Girls) v Bromley LBC [2009] EWCA 734 (Civ), a leading case on the need to consider alternative schemes. His recent High Court work has included challenges relating to the true significance of a CLEUD (Hannan v Newham LBC [2014] EWHC 1424 (Admin)), the application of s66 of the Planning (Listed Buildings etc) Act 1990 to decisions to grant planning permission for development which may affect nearby listed buildings (R (Trustees of the Cecil Family Trust) v South Kesteven District Council [2015] EWHC 1978 (Admin)) and the relationship between paragraphs 115 and 116 of the NPPF (Franks v SSCLG [2015] EWHC 3690 (Admin)).
Richard has considerable familiarity with enforcement issues, including claims of immunity, the correct drafting of enforcement notices and criminal liability, including confiscation. He has recently appeared before Magistrates and the Crown Court in cases concerning offences under s179 TCPA, unauthorised demolition of unlisted buildings in a conservation area and the felling of protected trees. He has extensive experience of applications for injunctions and committal orders.
His recent non-court/inquiry work has included cases involving the interpretation of planning permissions and conditions (including whether conditions are conditions precedent), the planning status of non-gypsy caravan sites, site licensing, deemed planning permission under the CSCDA 1960, whether mobile homes have become buildings, the application of the controls imposed by the Mobile Homes Act 1983, the interpretation of the CIL Regulations and the GPDO, TPO compensation claims, the validity of TPOs and the interpretation, variation and enforcement of planning obligations.
In several recent cases he has drafted effective objections to planning applications for amenity groups and individuals on a public access basis (concerning proposals for housing, development in conservation areas, gypsy sites, major town centre schemes, night clubs, and free schools).
Richard has expertise in those aspects of property law which commonly arise in planning cases, especially easements, rights of access, restrictive covenants, conditional contracts for the purchase of land, development agreements and overage clauses.
Richard is author of Conditions and Planning Obligations (CLT 1996).
Richard has a particular expertise and reputation in relation to gypsies and travellers. He has appeared in many of the important cases on gypsy law, starting with R v Lincolnshire CC ex p Atkinson [1997] JPL 65 (the duty to carry out welfare inquiries) and the much publicised Court of Appeal case First Secretary of State, Doe and Yates v Chichester DC [2005] 1 WLR 1248. He acted for the claimants in the leading cases establishing the present law on planning injunctions against persons unknown (South Cambridgeshire DC v Persons Unknown[2005], South Cambridgeshire DC v Gammell [2006] JPL 873 and Broxbourne BC v Robb [2011] EWCA 1355 (Civ)). He has appeared at numerous inquiries concerning gypsy sites, including all three inquiries into the notorious site at North Curry, Taunton. He has obtained many pre-emptive and final injunctions against gypsy caravans (recently for sites in Three Rivers, St Albans, Stafford, Dudley, and Barking and Dagenham).
Richard regularly advises local authorities and objectors on the interpretation of current national policy and on the robustness of GTAAs (recently in relation to assessments in Horsham, Croydon, North Yorkshire, Essex and West Sussex) and emerging local plan policies. In the last two years he has drafted effective objections to proposed emergency stopping places in Poole and Chichester and has helped a householder to persuade a local planning authority to seek a pre-emptive injunction to prevent usage of neighbouring land by gypsy caravans.
Richard frequently speaks at seminars on planning law and gypsies.
Richard’s practice covers highways and the rights and obligations of statutory undertakers. He has appeared at many DMMO inquiries, including the inquiry which led to the decision in Ali v SSEFRA [2015] EWHC 893 (Admin). He has recently advised on the difference between dedication at common law and under s31, the interpretation of s31 in light of Godmanchester, the physical extent of dedication, the strength of user evidence, criminal liability for obstruction of unrecorded footpaths, private street works, town and village greens, frontagers’ rights, the diversion of undertakers’ apparatus and compensation for landowners affected by undertakers’ works. On two recent occasions he drafted objections which caused highway authorities to reject DMMO applications. He is currently advising on the approach to be taken to claimed footpaths in Greater London, where the definitive map provisions do not apply.
Richard has considerable experience of the divergent technical standards for the layout of roundabouts and junctions. Earlier this year he appeared for a traffic authority at an inquiry into TROs needed to achieve the permanent pedestrianisation of Loughborough.
Richard has expertise in those areas of environmental law related to planning, including environmental impact, environmental permitting, the Habitats Directive, flooding, contaminated land, common law and statutory nuisance and the measurement of noise. He acted for Bath and North East Somerset Council in R (Baker) v BANES [2009] JPL 1498, the case which led to the amendment to the EIA Regulations, and in the two subsequent challenges dealing with the obligation to take enforcement action against unassessed EIA development ([2009] EWHC 3320 (Admin) and [2013] EWHC 946 (Admin)). He appeared for the successful planning authority in R (Larkfleet) v South Kesteven DC [2015] EWCA 887 (Civ), concerning the scope of the ‘project’ for EIA purposes and the adequacy of the consideration of cumulative effects. Other recent work has concerned litter abatement orders under s91 of the EPA 1990 (including hearings before Magistrates and the Administrative Court), proposals to redevelop Southend Pier (within an SSSI and a Ramsar site), the liability of a local authority under a development agreement in relation to methane escaping from a former landfill site, the right to make connections to sewers and to discharge into watercourses, dangerous structures notices, the relationship between environmental permitting and planning control and noise and odour nuisance.
He is the author of the chapters on contaminated land and the water industry in Environmental Law (OUP 2nded 2009).
Richard has appeared at many CPO inquiries, both for acquiring authorities and objectors, concerning a broad range of schemes, including recently a proposal to acquire a substantial area for a new secondary school. He is familiar with CPO procedures, having advised recently on the interpretation of CPOs, statutory conveyances, the acquisition of rights, exchange land certificates and the costs consequences of the withdrawal of a CPO.
Richard is regularly instructed in compensation claims, both for claimants and acquiring authorities, and is very familiar with Upper Tribunal procedure and the intricacies of the compensation code. He appeared for the successful acquiring authority in Potter v Hillingdon LBC [2010] JPL 1330 and in the associated case of Hall v Hillingdon LBC [2015] UKUT 606. Within the last year he has acted for claimants in two references which were satisfactorily settled. One involved the relationship between the planning assumptions in ss14-16 of the LCA 1961 and the Pointe Gourde principle. The other involved consideration of the need to design a detailed scheme (taking into account planning and physical circumstances in the distant past) for the purpose of pursuing a s18 appeal.
Richard read Jurisprudence at Lincoln College, Oxford, where he was an Exhibitioner and winner of the Winter Williams Law Essay Prize.
Land at Headley Road, Hindhead, Surrey
Land at St Michael’s, Tenbury Wells, Hereford
Land at Manor View, Southend Road, Thurrock
Land at Home Farm, Church Lane, Exeter
Land at Westerleigh Road, Pucklechurch, South Gloucestershire
Land off Humberstone Avenue, Humberstone, Grimsby
17 Greenwich Church Street
Woodman Public House, 93 Little Heath, Charlton
Land at Lye Lane, Bricket Wood, St Albans
Land at Icen Farm, Icen Lane, Bincombe, Weymouth
Land at Great Ashby, Stevenage
Land at Black Barn, Childwickbury, Herts
Land at Oxen Lane, North Curry
Greenheath Business Centre, 31 Three Colts Lane, London E2
Land at Dunreyth, Adsdean, Chichester
Land at Wharf Road, Broxbourne
Land at Moor Drove, Histon
Land at Djangos Rest, Mutterton
Oxen Lane, North Curry
Land at Riverside, Wheathampstead
Land at Jury Lane, Sidlesham, Chichester
Land at Charmy Down, Upper Swainswick, Bath
Land adjoining 48 Green Court Road, Swanley
Old Gannon Close, Rickmansworth
Land at 9 Ivydale Road, London SE23
Land at Melita Nursery, Sidlesham, Chichester
The proposal was in an existing built up area with no special designations. The issues were the bulk and massing of the new building and its effect on the character and appearance of the area and on residential amenity. The appeal was dismissed.
Richard Langham appeared for the appellant.
Two day inquiry into TROs needed to achieve the permanent pedestrianisation of Loughborough.
Two day CLEUD inquiry concerning a log cabin which replaced a mobile home. The mobile home had been used to accommodate young foreign workers and latterly the appellant.
The appellant had stationed a mobile home in a field adjoining her farmhouse (which was in mixed C2/C3 use) in 2004. She claimed that she used the mobile home to provide accommodation for young foreign workers and that this was unconnected with the use of the farm house. In 2012 the farm house was sold and the appellant moved into the mobile home herself. She then applied for planning permission to replace the mobile home with a log cabin. The local planning authority purported to determine that planning permission was not required. In reliance on this purported determination the appellant replaced the mobile home with a log cabin. The appellant argued that the log cabin was not a building, but that, even if it was, the purported determination meant that enforcement action on this basis would be an abuse of power. The appellant further contended that the replacement of the mobile home in these circumstances could not have the effect of destroying the use rights associated with the mobile home.
Richard Langham appeared for the appellant, on a public access basis.
Three day s174 inquiry concerning a gypsy caravan site of four pitches in the Green Belt.
This appeal concerned four pitches for gypsy caravans in the Green Belt. The local planning authority had recently completed a GTAA: the robustness of this was debated at length at the inquiry. There was nothing like a 5 year supply of deliverable sites. The decision had been recovered but was un-recovered following the decision in Moore. The Inspector allowed the appeal – shortly before the revision to the PPTS and the introduction of the new policy on intentional unauthorised development in the Green Belt. The local planning authority is challenging the decision.
This s78 appeal concerned a substantial housing development on the outskirts of Exeter. The location was part of the landscape setting of the City and the site had been rejected for allocation. The local planning authority contended that it had a 5 year supply of deliverable housing sites, relying on a large amount of student accommodation and the terms of the Planning Practice Guidance. The developer contended that it was only appropriate to count these units if the housing target took account of the need for student accommodation – which in this case it did not. The Inspector held that the local planning authority’s interpretation of the Planning Practice Guidance was incorrect and that there was no 5 year supply of deliverable sites. She granted planning permission. Her decision was unsuccessfully challenged (Exeter City Council v SSCLG [2015] EWHC 1663).
This was the redetermination of an appeal following the decision in AZ v SSCLG [2012] EWHC 3660 (Admin). The local planning authority had served an enforcement notice against a caravan stationed in a field in the Green Belt. The appellant had a severe psychiatric condition which meant that he needed ready access to open space. However he could not afford to buy a house with a large garden. There was evidence that he might commit suicide if forced to leave the present site. On the other hand there was also evidence that his condition might be treatable and that treatment had not been attempted. The appellant contended that there was no 5 year supply of deliverable housing sites because the calculations of the local planning authority wrongly addressed the existing backlog on an annualised basis over the life of the Core Strategy. The local planning authority relied on comments of the Core Strategy Inspector in a very recent report which endorsed this approach. The appeal was allowed. The decision was challenged and found to be seriously flawed, albeit that it was not quashed (South Gloucestershire DC v SSCLG [2015] EWCA 74 (Civ)).
This s78 appeal concerned a proposal for 400 houses on a greenfield site on the edge of a settlement. The settlement boundary was accepted as being out-of-date and the site had been identified as acceptable in a SHLAA. The local planning authority had not established its OAHN and certainly could not show a 5 year supply of deliverable sites. The authority contended that it was undesirable to allow the release of greenfield sites while there remained many derelict brownfield sites in Grimsby that were suitable for housing. The case also raised the acceptability of a payment for highway improvements based on a theoretical minor easing of the geometry of a roundabout, sufficient to accommodate the increase in traffic attributable to the development. The theoretical widening would never be carried out and the payment was tantamount to an unofficial CIL. The Inspector granted planning permission, relying on paragraph 49 of the NPPF.
In this case an enforcement notice alleged a change of use to a mixed A3/shisha smoking use. The principal issue under ground (a) was whether the development breached a policy against the loss of A1 premises. The Inspector effectively held that whether this policy was applicable depended on the nature of the s57(4) use. Because this was not an A1 use he held that policy had not been breached. He quashed the enforcement notice.
This appeal concerned an enforcement notice served against flats on the upper floors of a public house. The flats were unacceptably small, and the principal issue was the ground (d) appeal. The upper floors had previously been used for residential purposes, but usually in association with the ground floor public house use. The landlord sometimes allowed them to be used by lodgers, but there was nothing to suggest that the lodgers had separate occupation of any space (they shared rooms). The Inspector therefore found that the entire building had previously been a single planning unit, whereas now each flat was a separate planning unit. The appeal was dismissed.
This Green Belt site had an existing club house and planning permission for a modest pavilion to serve a playing field. The appellant embarked on an ambitious scheme for a gym and leisure centre, as revealed by plans submitted for Building Regulations approval, and protested when the local planning authority served a temporary stop notice followed by an enforcement notice. He argued that, far from taking enforcement action, the authority should have negotiated about the conditions it would impose in a retrospective planning permission. He claimed that this approach was mandated by PPG18. Not surprisingly he lost. The development was subsequently demolished.
An enforcement notice required the demolition of a half-finished building in an AONB. This had the potential to be 3 dwellinghouses. Planning permission had been granted for an agricultural worker’s dwelling but the Inspector agreed with the local planning authority that the development materially departed from this. He also found that the planning permission had not been lawfully implemented. In relation to the ground (a) appeal he found that the appellant had no agricultural need for anything and that there was no other justification for permitting this development in an AONB. Costs were awarded against the appellant.
The CPO inquiry opened the day after the Coalition government announced the cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future programme. The education authority asked for the inquiry to be adjourned while it sought alternative funding. It then abandoned the proposal. The Secretary of State initially declined to order the education authority to pay the objectors’ costs. The objectors challenged his decision by judicial review and he changed his mind.
Richard Langham appeared for the objectors.
This inquiry concerned use of land as a waste transfer station and for skip hire. The appellant argued that the site had previously been used for the importation and processing of waste. There had been no skip hire business but the appellant argued that this did not matter, since the use made of the skips off-site could not affect the characterisation of the use of the site. The Inspector dismissed the appeals, holding that, at the start of the 10 year period, the primary use was not for the importation and processing of waste.
This was the third inquiry into continuing gypsy usage of the notorious site at Oxen Lane, North Curry. The site was on a slope, in open countryside. The first inquiry had considered the use of the entire site for 16 pitches. The second had concerned four pitches at the bottom of the site. Both appeals had been dismissed. This appeal concerned a single pitch at the top of the site, close to existing housing. It was also dismissed. The entire site has subsequently be cleared by injunction (see Taunton Deane Borough Council v Packman [2010] EWHC 2437 (QB)).
The proposal was for a major scheme involving a tower of student accommodation and the refurbishment of existing buildings to provide a business centre. The issues were the need for student accommodation, the likely over-concentration of student accommodation in the local area, loss of daylight, policy on tall buildings and the impact of the proposed tower on the character and appearance of the area. The appeal was dismissed.
In this appeal, which was decided before the decision in Welwyn Hatfield, it was claimed that residential accommodation, constructed secretly inside a large barn, was immune from enforcement action. The Council contended that the four year period was not applicable because the facilities did not constitute a dwellinghouse. There was only one sink and no daylight (the windows looked into the interior of the agricultural building). Further the residential accommodation was not functionally and physically separate from the remainder of the barn. The Inspector agreed and dismissed the CLEUD/ground (d) appeal. However he granted temporary planning permission under ground (a) on the basis of agricultural need associated with the rearing of alpacas.
The site was one of a number of leisure plots in the Green Belt and the Lea Valley Regional Park. Some were already lawfully used for the stationing of gypsy caravans. In relation to others the local planning authority had obtained a pre-emptive injunction to prevent the stationing of caravans. There was a significant unmet need for gypsy sites in the borough. The site was vulnerable to flooding. The appeal was held to be invalid as the purported appellant had no interest in the land.
This appeal concerned ten pitches for gypsy caravans in the Green Belt. A previous, pre-C1/2006 appeal had been dismissed on Green Belt and highways grounds. The local planning authority contended that the harms associated with the development were unchanged. In particular the highway circumstances were identical. However the Inspector allowed the appeal, given the high level of unmet need and the advent of C1/2006.
This case concerned a new age traveller caravan in a countryside location some distance from local services. The issues were highway safety, whether the appellant and her children would really walk considerable distances to get to school and the unmet need for pitches. The local planning authority was making considerable progress in meeting the need identified in a recent GTAA but was not proposing to make separate provision for new age travellers. The Inspector quashed the enforcement notice.
This inquiry sat for six days between December 2007 and March 2008 and considered a post-C1/2006 application for planning permission to continue use of part of the controversial gypsy site at Oxen Lane, North Curry. The original 16 pitch site had been established suddenly over a weekend in October 2004. An enforcement notice had been upheld on appeal in 2005. The present application was for four pitches. The site was not in the Green Belt and had no special designation. A nearby junction was deficient but it was said that a small number of extra vehicles would make no material difference to this. The local planning authority had a good record of providing gypsy sites but there remained an unmet need and the authority had not identified any new sites. The Inspector held that individually none of the pitches caused unacceptable harm, but that, if one was permitted, it would be impossible to resist the other three appeal pitches – or pitches elsewhere on the site. He therefore dismissed the appeals. The decision was unsuccessfully challenged (Holland v SSCLG [2009] EWHC 2161 (Admin)).
This case concerned one pitch for gypsy caravans on a site in the Green Belt. The appellant owned two houses in Luton. The local planning authority contended that, if the appellant insisted in living in a caravan, he could station a caravan in the curtilage of one of these and use it as ancillary accommodation. The Inspector accepted this and dismissed the appeal. The appellant then failed to comply with the enforcement notice until compelled to do so by injunction.
The site had been allocated as a travelling show persons’ site and planning permission for this use had been granted. It was being used by caravans occupied by migrant workers. The Council served enforcement notices in the alternative since it was unclear whether the planning permission (containing conditions which were being breached) had been implemented. The Inspector found that the planning permission had not been implemented and upheld the enforcement notice which alleged development without planning permission. He rejected a ground (a) appeal because it would be undesirable to lose a site which could be used to meet the needs of travelling show people in accordance with C4/2007.
This inquiry considered a post-C1/2006 application for temporary planning permission to continue to station gypsy caravans at Charmy Down, Upper Swainswick, Bath. The site had been the subject of an unsuccessful appeal in 2005 and had been considered, in the context of injunction proceedings, by the High Court in Bath and NE Somerset Council v Connors and others [2006] EWHC 1595, [2007] JPL 140. The site was in the Green Belt and the AONB, had a seriously unsafe access and lay above an important aquifer. On the other hand the local planning authority (which was the lead authority responsible for the unlawful Structure Plan gypsy policy considered in Butler v BANES [2004] JPL 941) had no gypsy sites, relied on a criteria based policy which had been criticized as inadequate by the local plan Inspector and could not identify any alternative site for the appellants. The emerging RSS suggested that the authority would have to provide 18 pitches.
Jurisdiction was recovered. The appeal was dismissed and an enforcement notice upheld.
Richard Langham appeared for the local planning authority. He has also appeared in successful contempt proceedings taken against the occupants of the site.
The proposal concerned a semi-derelict building in a field in the Green Belt. It was argued that this had lawful use rights for B8 use. A structural survey showed that the building was capable of conversion to a dwelling ‘without major or complete reconstruction’. The Inspector granted planning permission for conversion to residential use.
Planning permission had been granted in 1993 for the construction of a large house. The planning permission had been implemented but progress was minimal and neighbours found themselves living next to a permanent building site. The appellant applied for planning permission for extra windows. The local planning authority granted a fresh planning permission for the house with a condition requiring the development to be completed to the satisfaction of the local planning authority within 9 months. On appeal the Inspector removed this condition. While he sympathised with the Council’s intentions, he thought that it would be impossible to enforce the condition effectively and that any enforcement action would merely delay the completion of the building.
In this case the Inspector was not prepared to accept the appellant’s evidence that the premises had been used as flats for the requisite 4 year period. The appeal was dismissed.
This case concerned four pitches used for gypsy caravans in open countryside. The site was the subject of an existing enforcement notice and injunction proceedings to secure compliance were on foot. The appeal was heard shortly after the publication of C1/2006 and in the aftermath of the decision in FSS v Chichester DC [2004] EWCA 1248 (Civ). There was a significant unmet need in the district. The Inspector allowed the appeal.
The new Planning Policy on Traveller Sites and Guidance on the assessment of need
Injunctions, s179 and confiscation: where are we now?
Scrutinising the assessment of need- requirements of the Planning Policy on Traveller Sites vs reality
The new Planning Policy on Traveller Sites- reassessing need and suitable locations for sites
The new Planning Policy on Traveller Sites: what has changed?
Implications of new Planning Policy on Traveller Sites for hearings
Enforcement by injunction- a practical guide
Circular 1 of 2006: achievements and aftermath
Circular 1 of 2006, gypsies and planning
High Court Challenges to Decisions to Take Enforcement Action
Enforcement action against unlawful development by gypsies
Planning injunctions against persons unknown