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Item6Appendix3Circular10_2009_PlanningEnforcement

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 Appendix 3 13/12/2024 Agenda Item 6 Appendix 3 Cir­cu­lar 10 – 2009 – plan­ning enforcement

CIR­CU­LAR 2009 10 PLAN­NING ENFORCE­MENT The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment circular

Cir­cu­lar 10/2009: Plan­ning Enforcement

INTRO­DUC­TION 1. The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to provid­ing a mod­ern, effect­ive and effi­cient plan­ning sys­tem which oper­ates in the interest of the loc­al com­munity and the envir­on­ment. An import­ant ele­ment of the plan­ning sys­tem is the range of powers avail­able to plan­ning author­it­ies to enforce plan­ning con­trol. How­ever, those powers are only use­ful if they are used effect­ively by plan­ning author­it­ies. 2. This Cir­cu­lar and the attached annexes set out Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment policy on the use of the enforce­ment powers con­tained in the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 1997, as amended by the Plan­ning etc. (Scot­land) Act 2006. The gen­er­al approach to enforce­ment of plan­ning con­trols is equally applic­able to oth­er related enforce­ment. Spe­cif­ic enforce­ment guid­ance can be found in the fol­low­ing: 3. • • • • • • Lis­ted Build­ings. Guid­ance on issu­ing Lis­ted Build­ing Enforce­ment Notices can be found on the His­tor­ic Scot­land web­site at http://www.historic- scot​land​.gov​.uk/​w​w​w​.​h​i​s​t​o​r​i​c​-​s​c​o​t​l​a​n​d​.​g​o​v​.​u​k​/​m​a​n​a​g​i​n​g​c​hange. Con­ser­va­tion Areas (Sched­ule 4 of the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Lis­ted Build­ings & Build­ings in Con­ser­va­tion Areas) (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions 1987); Advert­ise­ments (Scot­tish Office Devel­op­ment Depart­ment Cir­cu­lar 10/1984); Spe­cial Enforce­ment Notices (The Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Spe­cial Enforce­ment Notices) (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions 1992); Haz­ard­ous Sub­stances Con­tra­ven­tion Notices (The Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Haz­ard­ous Sub­stances) (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions 1993); and Tree Pre­ser­va­tion Orders (Scot­tish Office Envir­on­ment Depart­ment Cir­cu­lar 9/1992). Pre­vi­ous advice was con­tained in Cir­cu­lar 4/1999 which covered the powers to enforce plan­ning con­trol giv­en to plan­ning author­it­ies by sec­tions 123 to 158 of the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 1997 (the 1997 Act). This Cir­cu­lar replaces Cir­cu­lar 4/1999, and con­sol­id­ates that guid­ance with the amend­ments to exist­ing sec­tions of the 1997 Act and new sec­tions intro­duced in the Plan­ning etc. (Scot­land) Act 2006 (the 2006 Act). Through­out the Cir­cu­lar ref­er­ences to sec­tions of the Act refer to sec­tions with­in the amended Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 1997 unless oth­er­wise stated. 4. Much of this Cir­cu­lar and its Annexes refer to the powers and pro­ced­ures avail­able to plan­ning author­it­ies in deal­ing with plan­ning enforce­ment issues. Detailed guid­ance on enforce­ment powers is set out in the annexes to this cir­cu­lar, as fol­lows: Annex A — Defin­i­tions used and time lim­its on Enforce­ment Action Annex B Ini­ti­ation and com­ple­tion of devel­op­ment and dis­play of notice while devel­op­ment is car­ried out 1

Annex C — Notice requir­ing applic­a­tion for plan­ning per­mis­sion for devel­op­ment already car­ried out Annex D — Plan­ning Con­tra­ven­tion Notices Annex E — Rights of Entry Annex F — Cer­ti­fic­ates of Law­ful Use or Devel­op­ment Annex G — Enforce­ment Notices Annex H — Stop Notices Annex I — Tem­por­ary Stop Notices Annex J — Breach of Con­di­tion Notices Annex K — Fixed Pen­alty Notices Annex L — Inter­dicts to Restrain Breaches of Plan­ning Con­trol Annex M — Land Adversely Affect­ing Amen­ity of Neigh­bour­hood Annex N – Enforce­ment Charters

THE GEN­ER­AL APPROACH TO ENFORCEMENT

  1. The Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Gen­er­al Per­mit­ted Devel­op­ment) (Scot­land) Order 1992 grants plan­ning per­mis­sion to cer­tain spe­cified classes of devel­op­ment, remov­ing the need for a plan­ning applic­a­tion to be made in those cases. Any oth­er class of devel­op­ment is likely to require an applic­a­tion for plan­ning per­mis­sion. It is for pro­spect­ive developers to ascer­tain wheth­er such an applic­a­tion is required and to ensure that an applic­a­tion is sub­mit­ted where necessary.
  2. Under­tak­ing devel­op­ment without appro­pri­ate per­mis­sion gen­er­ally con­sti­tutes a breach of plan­ning con­trol and may res­ult in enforce­ment action under plan­ning legislation.
  3. Noth­ing in this guid­ance should be taken as con­don­ing any breach of plan­ning law. Plan­ning author­it­ies have a gen­er­al dis­cre­tion to take enforce­ment action against any breach of plan­ning con­trol if they con­sider such action to be expedi­ent, hav­ing regard to the pro­vi­sions of the devel­op­ment plan and any oth­er mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tions. When they are con­sid­er­ing wheth­er any par­tic­u­lar form­al enforce­ment action is an expedi­ent rem­edy for unau­thor­ised devel­op­ment, plan­ning author­it­ies should be guided by the fol­low­ing con­sid­er­a­tions: 2

8. • • • • Plan­ning author­it­ies, under the pro­vi­sions of the 1997 Act, have primary respons­ib­il­ity for tak­ing whatever enforce­ment action may be neces­sary in the pub­lic interest, in their admin­is­trat­ive area. Decisions in such cases, and any res­ult­ing action, should be taken without undue delay. Fail­ure to do so could con­sti­tute grounds for a find­ing of mal­ad­min­is­tra­tion by the Scot­tish Pub­lic Ser­vices Ombuds­man. In con­sid­er­ing any enforce­ment action, the plan­ning author­ity, with regard to the Devel­op­ment Plan, should con­sider wheth­er the breach of con­trol would affect unac­cept­ably either pub­lic amen­ity or the use of land and build­ings mer­it­ing pro­tec­tion in the pub­lic interest. Enforce­ment action should always be com­men­sur­ate with the breach of plan­ning con­trol to which it relates. For example, it is usu­ally inap­pro­pri­ate to take form­al enforce­ment action against a trivi­al or tech­nic­al breach of plan­ning con­trol which has no mater­i­al adverse plan­ning implic­a­tions (but see para­graph 8 below). How­ever, plan­ning author­it­ies should be aware that fail­ure to take enforce­ment action against a breach of plan­ning con­trol could be sub­ject to a refer­ral to the Scot­tish Pub­lic Ser­vices Ombuds­man While it is the case that it may be pos­sible to resolve a breach of plan­ning con­trol through inform­al nego­ti­ations, par­tic­u­larly where the breach is rel­at­ively minor and/​or unin­ten­tion­al, where such an approach is ini­tially unsuc­cess­ful, fur­ther nego­ti­ations should not be allowed to hamper or delay whatever form­al enforce­ment action may be required to make the devel­op­ment accept­able on plan­ning grounds, or to com­pel it to stop. Plan­ning author­it­ies should bear in mind the stat­utory time lim­its for tak­ing enforce­ment action and, in par­tic­u­lar, the pos­sib­il­ity that a refer­ral to the Pro­cur­at­or Fisc­al to determ­ine wheth­er to ini­ti­ate a crim­in­al pro­sec­u­tion may need to be made promptly in those cases where breaches have to be pro­sec­uted with­in 6 months of the date on which the offence was com­mit­ted. This is not the date of the alleged breach of plan­ning con­trol but the last date of fail­ure to com­ply with the Notice requir­ing the breach to be remedied.

  1. The integ­rity of the devel­op­ment man­age­ment pro­cess depends upon the plan­ning authority’s read­i­ness to take effect­ive enforce­ment action when neces­sary. Pub­lic respect for the devel­op­ment man­age­ment sys­tem is under­mined if unau­thor­ised devel­op­ment, which is unac­cept­able on its plan­ning mer­its, is allowed to pro­ceed without any appar­ent attempt by the plan­ning author­ity to inter­vene before ser­i­ous harm to amen­ity res­ults from the breach. 10. Plan­ning author­it­ies have a wide choice of avail­able options for tak­ing enforce­ment action, whenev­er they con­sider it appro­pri­ate. Author­it­ies need to assess, in each case, which power (or mix of powers) is best suited to deal­ing with any par­tic­u­lar sus­pec­ted or actu­al breach of con­trol to achieve a sat­is­fact­ory, last­ing and cost-effect­ive rem­edy. Rap­id ini­ti­ation of enforce­ment action is usu­ally vital to pre­vent a breach of plan­ning con­trol becom­ing well estab­lished and more dif­fi­cult to rem­edy. WHERE DEVEL­OP­MENT IS CAR­RIED OUT WITHOUT PER­MIS­SION 11. Sec­tion 33 provides that an applic­a­tion for plan­ning per­mis­sion may be made ret­ro­spect­ively for build­ings or works con­struc­ted or car­ried out, or a use of land 3

insti­tuted, before the date of the applic­a­tion. Fur­ther­more sec­tion 33A (intro­duced by the 2006 Act) allows a plan­ning author­ity to issue a notice requir­ing the sub­mis­sion of such an applic­a­tion. Accord­ingly, where the plan­ning authority’s assess­ment indic­ates clearly that plan­ning per­mis­sion should be gran­ted for devel­op­ment which has already taken place, the cor­rect enforce­ment approach is (assum­ing an inform­al request to sub­mit a ret­ro­spect­ive plan­ning applic­a­tion has been unsuc­cess­ful) to issue to the per­son respons­ible for the devel­op­ment a notice under sec­tion 33A requir­ing applic­a­tion for plan­ning per­mis­sion for devel­op­ment already car­ried out (togeth­er with the appro­pri­ate applic­a­tion fee). If such a ret­ro­spect­ive applic­a­tion con­tains unac­cept­able ele­ments the plan­ning author­ity may reject it or grant it sub­ject to con­di­tions. It may also be appro­pri­ate to con­sider wheth­er any oth­er pub­lic author­ity (e.g. the roads or envir­on­ment­al health author­ity) is bet­ter able to take remedi­al action. WHERE UNAU­THOR­ISED DEVEL­OP­MENT CAN BE MADE ACCEPT­ABLE BY THE IMPOS­I­TION OF CONDITIONS

  1. A plan­ning author­ity may con­sider that devel­op­ment has been car­ried out without the requis­ite plan­ning per­mis­sion but that the devel­op­ment could be made accept­able by the impos­i­tion of plan­ning con­di­tions (for example, to con­trol the hours, or mode, of oper­a­tion; or to carry out a land­scap­ing scheme). In such cases the author­ity should require the own­er or occu­pi­er of the land to sub­mit an applic­a­tion through the issue of a notice under sec­tion 33A. It can be poin­ted out to the per­son con­cerned that the author­ity does not neces­sar­ily wish the activ­ity to cease, but that they have a pub­lic duty to safe­guard amen­ity by ensur­ing that devel­op­ment is car­ried out, or con­tin­ued, with­in accept­able lim­its, hav­ing regard to loc­al cir­cum­stances and the rel­ev­ant plan­ning policies.
  2. Plan­ning author­it­ies should bear in mind the need to determ­ine such applic­a­tions in the nor­mal way and the pos­sible effect of such devel­op­ment on the func­tions of stat­utory under­takers. 14. If, after a form­al notice to do so, the own­er or occu­pi­er of the land refuses to sub­mit a plan­ning applic­a­tion, the plan­ning author­ity should con­sider wheth­er it is expedi­ent to issue an enforce­ment notice. Sec­tion 128 of the 1997 Act provides that one of the pur­poses for which the plan­ning author­ity may, in an enforce­ment notice, require remedi­al steps to be taken is for ​‘rem­edy­ing any injury to amen­ity which has been caused by the breach’. For that pur­pose, sec­tion 128(5) provides that an enforce­ment notice may require, among oth­er things, ​‘the car­ry­ing out of any build­ing or oth­er oper­a­tions’ (para­graph (b)); or ​‘any activ­ity on the land not to be car­ried on except to the extent spe­cified in the notice’ (para­graph ©).
  3. Accord­ingly, where an own­er or occu­pi­er of land refuses to sub­mit a plan­ning applic­a­tion, thereby enabling the plan­ning author­ity to grant plan­ning per­mis­sion sub­ject to con­di­tions or lim­it­a­tions, the author­ity would be jus­ti­fied in issu­ing an enforce­ment notice if they con­sider that the unau­thor­ised devel­op­ment has res­ul­ted in injury to amen­ity, or dam­age to a stat­utor­ily des­ig­nated site, which can be removed or alle­vi­ated by impos­ing restric­tions on the devel­op­ment. 4

WHERE THE UNAU­THOR­ISED DEVEL­OP­MENT IS UNAC­CEPT­ABLE ON THE SITE BUT RELO­CA­TION IS FEASIBLE

  1. It is not the plan­ning authority’s respons­ib­il­ity to seek out and sug­gest an altern­at­ive site to which an activ­ity might be relo­cated sat­is­fact­or­ily. How­ever, if, for example as part of their eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment func­tions, the author­ity is aware of a suit­able altern­at­ive site, it may be help­ful to sug­gest it and to encour­age remov­al of the unau­thor­ised devel­op­ment to that site. An author­ity should not sug­gest a site out­with its own area unless it has sought agree­ment from the plan­ning author­ity respons­ible for that site. Nor should the plan­ning author­ity delay the tak­ing of form­al enforce­ment action simply to allow the developer time to loc­ate and pro­pose an altern­at­ive site.
  2. If an accept­able altern­at­ive site has been loc­ated, the plan­ning author­ity should make it clear to the own­ers or occu­pi­ers of the site where unau­thor­ised devel­op­ment has taken place that they are expec­ted to relo­cate to the altern­at­ive site. This may be done through issu­ing an enforce­ment notice requir­ing relo­ca­tion to the altern­at­ive site. The plan­ning author­ity should set a reas­on­able time lim­it with­in which relo­ca­tion should be com­pleted. What is reas­on­able will depend on the par­tic­u­lar cir­cum­stances, includ­ing the nature and extent of the unau­thor­ised devel­op­ment; the time needed to nego­ti­ate for, and secure an interest in, the altern­at­ive site; and the need to avoid unac­cept­able dis­rup­tion in the re-loc­a­tion pro­cess. Where an enforce­ment notice has been issued the com­pli­ance peri­od in the notice should spe­cify what the plan­ning author­ity regards as a reas­on­able peri­od to com­plete the relo­ca­tion, in accord­ance with sec­tion 128(9) of the 1997 Act. WHERE THE UNAU­THOR­ISED DEVEL­OP­MENT IS UNAC­CEPT­ABLE AND RELO­CA­TION IS NOT FEAS­IBLE 18. Where, in the plan­ning authority’s view, unau­thor­ised and unac­cept­able devel­op­ment has been car­ried out and there is no real­ist­ic pro­spect of its being relo­cated to a more suit­able site, the own­ers or occu­pi­ers of the land should be informed that the author­ity is not pre­pared to allow the oper­a­tion or activ­ity to con­tin­ue at its present level of activ­ity, or (if this is the case) at all.

  3. If agree­ment can be reached between the oper­at­or and the plan­ning author­ity about the peri­od to be allowed for the oper­a­tion or activ­ity to cease, or be reduced to an accept­able level, and the per­son con­cerned hon­ours the agree­ment, the need for form­al enforce­ment action may be avoided. Plan­ning author­it­ies need to be aware, how­ever, of the pos­sib­il­ity of resump­tion or intens­i­fic­a­tion of the oper­a­tion or activ­ity after expiry of the stat­utory peri­od for enforce­ment action. In the event of an agree­ment being reached close to expiry of the stat­utory time peri­od for enforce­ment then an enforce­ment notice should still be served and an explan­a­tion giv­en to the oper­at­or as to why this is being done. This will pre­serve the pos­i­tion under sec­tion 124(4)(b), as it will give the plan­ning author­ity the oppor­tun­ity to take fur­ther enforce­ment action should this be neces­sary in the event of the oper­at­or sub­sequently breach­ing the terms of the agree­ment which he has entered into with the plan­ning author­ity. 5

  4. If no agree­ment can be reached, the issue of an enforce­ment notice will usu­ally be jus­ti­fied, allow­ing a real­ist­ic com­pli­ance peri­od for the unau­thor­ised oper­a­tion or activ­ity to cease, or its scale to be accept­ably reduced. Any dif­fi­culty with relo­ca­tion will not nor­mally be a suf­fi­cient reas­on for delay­ing form­al enforce­ment action to rem­edy unac­cept­able unau­thor­ised devel­op­ment. WHERE THE UNAU­THOR­ISED DEVEL­OP­MENT IS UNAC­CEPT­ABLE AND IMME­DI­ATE REMEDI­AL ACTION IS REQUIRED 21. Where, in the plan­ning authority’s view, unau­thor­ised devel­op­ment is unac­cept­able and remedi­al action is required, the author­ity should nor­mally take vig­or­ous enforce­ment action, usu­ally through issu­ing an enforce­ment notice, but also, where appro­pri­ate, con­sider the use of a stop notice, tem­por­ary stop notice, or an applic­a­tion for an inter­dict to rem­edy the breach. UNAU­THOR­ISED DEVEL­OP­MENT BY SMALL BUSI­NESSES OR SELF- EMPLOYED PEOPLE 22 Although some breaches of con­trol are clearly delib­er­ate, a plan­ning author­ity may find that the own­er or oper­at­or of a busi­ness has car­ried out unlaw­ful devel­op­ment in good faith believ­ing that no plan­ning per­mis­sion is needed. The cost of respond­ing to enforce­ment action may rep­res­ent a sub­stan­tial fin­an­cial bur­den on a small busi­ness, or self-employed per­son. Plan­ning author­it­ies should take this into con­sid­er­a­tion when decid­ing how to handle a par­tic­u­lar case. How­ever, where there is clear evid­ence of a per­son abus­ing plan­ning legis­la­tion, and the plan­ning author­ity has been unable to resolve the issue through nego­ti­ation, form­al enforce­ment action is jus­ti­fied. 23. The ini­tial aim should be to explore — in dis­cus­sion with the own­er or oper­at­or — wheth­er the busi­ness can be allowed to con­tin­ue on the site at its cur­rent level of activ­ity, or per­haps less intens­ively. The plan­ning author­ity should care­fully explain the plan­ning objec­tions to the cur­rent oper­a­tion of the busi­ness and, if it is prac­tic­able, sug­gest ways in which they may be over­come. 24. This may res­ult in the grant of a mutu­ally accept­able con­di­tion­al plan­ning per­mis­sion, enabling the own­er or oper­at­or to con­tin­ue in busi­ness at the site without harm to loc­al amen­ity. If the site’s own­er or occu­pi­er is at first reluct­ant to nego­ti­ate with the plan­ning author­ity, the ser­vice of a plan­ning con­tra­ven­tion notice may help to con­vey the plan­ning authority’s determ­in­a­tion not to allow the devel­op­ment to go ahead by default. 25. Before tak­ing form­al enforce­ment action, unless it is urgently needed, the plan­ning author­ity should seek to resolve the prob­lem through inform­al dis­cus­sion about pos­sible means of min­im­ising harm to loc­al amen­ity caused by the busi­ness activ­ity; and, if form­al action will clearly be needed, by dis­cus­sion of the pos­sible relo­ca­tion of the busi­ness to anoth­er site. How­ever inform­al dis­cus­sion should not be allowed to delay form­al action being taken where the plan­ning author­ity con­sider such action is required. 6

26. As explained in para­graph 16, it is not the plan­ning authority’s respons­ib­il­ity to take the ini­ti­at­ive in find­ing or provid­ing a suit­able altern­at­ive site. If form­al enforce­ment action is likely to com­pel a small busi­ness or self-employed per­son to relo­cate their trad­ing activ­it­ies, the plan­ning author­ity should aim to agree on a timetable for relo­ca­tion which will min­im­ise dis­rup­tion to the busi­ness and, if pos­sible, avoid any per­man­ent loss of employ­ment as a res­ult of the relocation.

  1. Once an enforce­ment notice has taken effect, plan­ning author­it­ies should bear in mind that, where the cir­cum­stances jus­ti­fy it, sec­tion 129 enables them to with­draw the notice, or to waive or relax any require­ment in it, includ­ing the com­pli­ance peri­od. A reas­on­able com­pli­ance peri­od, or an exten­sion of the ini­tial peri­od, may make the dif­fer­ence between enabling the busi­ness to con­tin­ue oper­a­tion, or com­pel­ling them to cease trading.
  2. The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment remains com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing busi­ness enter­prise, provided that the neces­sary devel­op­ment can take place without unac­cept­able harm to loc­al amen­ity. Plan­ning author­it­ies should bear this in mind when con­sid­er­ing how best to deal with unau­thor­ised devel­op­ment by small busi­nesses. Nev­er­the­less, effect­ive enforce­ment action is likely to be the only appro­pri­ate rem­edy if the busi­ness activ­ity is caus­ing con­tinu­ing harm. UNAU­THOR­ISED DEVEL­OP­MENT BY PRIVATE HOUSE­HOLD­ERS 29. When con­sid­er­ing the pos­sib­il­ity of enforce­ment action involving unau­thor­ised devel­op­ment by a private house­hold­er, plan­ning author­it­ies should bear in mind that the house­hold­er may have been unaware of the need for plan­ning per­mis­sion, or may have thought the devel­op­ment qual­i­fied as per­mit­ted devel­op­ment under the pro­vi­sions of the Gen­er­al Per­mit­ted Devel­op­ment Order (GPDO).
  3. Plan­ning author­it­ies should not nor­mally take enforce­ment action in order to rem­edy a slight vari­ation in excess of what would have been per­mit­ted by vir­tue of the GPDO pro­vi­sions. How­ever, the plan­ning author­ity should take into account any third-party rep­res­ent­a­tions received in respect of the mat­ter. Where the breach is clearly unac­cept­able, then the plan­ning author­ity should gen­er­ally take form­al enforce­ment action without delay. ENFORCE­MENT OF PLAN­NING CON­TROL OVER MIN­ER­AL WORK­ING 31. The gen­er­al prin­ciples and policies applic­able to enforce­ment apply equally to cases of min­er­al work­ing. Nev­er­the­less, par­tic­u­lar prob­lems may be posed by unau­thor­ised devel­op­ments of this type. In par­tic­u­lar, the issue of an enforce­ment notice, com­bined where appro­pri­ate with a stop notice, may pre­vent dam­age either to the site itself or to the sur­round­ing area, which would oth­er­wise be irre­vers­ible or irre­medi­able. A tem­por­ary stop notice may be used if the mat­ter is urgent. Where neces­sary, plan­ning author­it­ies may decide to apply for an interdict.
  4. Examples of situ­ations requir­ing rap­id enforce­ment action might be where a min­er­al oper­at­or is mov­ing soil mater­i­als in con­tra­ven­tion of plan­ning con­di­tions, so as to jeop­ard­ise the res­tor­a­tion and after­care of the site; or if unau­thor­ised excav­a­tions out­side the per­mit­ted bound­ary cause con­cern for the safety and 7

sta­bil­ity of sur­round­ing land. How­ever, it always remains prefer­able for liais­on and con­tacts between plan­ning author­it­ies and min­er­al oper­at­ors to be suf­fi­ciently good to avoid such con­tra­ven­tions, and to resolve any prob­lems through dis­cus­sion and co-oper­a­tion. THE ORGAN­ISA­TION OF ENFORCE­MENT FUNC­TIONS BY PLAN­NING AUTHOR­IT­IES 33. It is for each plan­ning author­ity to decide how they organ­ise the admin­is­trat­ive func­tion of enfor­cing plan­ning con­trol. How­ever, the admin­is­tra­tion should cor­res­pond to the volume and com­plex­ity of enforce­ment case­work in each plan­ning authority’s area and be suf­fi­ciently flex­ible to adapt to short-term increases in the demand for enforcement.

  1. All author­it­ies should ensure that there is a close and co-oper­at­ive work­ing rela­tion­ship between the Plan­ning Depart­ment and the Solicitor’s Depart­ment (or equi­val­ent). When appro­pri­ate, Plan­ning Depart­ments should also liaise closely with the depart­ments respons­ible for oth­er reg­u­lat­ory activ­ity, for instance; Build­ing Stand­ards (although the enforce­ment powers avail­able to plan­ning offi­cials dif­fer con­sid­er­ably from those avail­able to build­ing stand­ards officers) and licens­ing of houses in mul­tiple occu­pancy. Without such effect­ive work­ing rela­tion­ships, form­al enforce­ment action (which often depends for its suc­cess upon speed of assess­ment and pro­cess) may be hampered by poor com­mu­nic­a­tions and mis­un­der­stand­ings. Pub­lic cri­ti­cism is then likely, espe­cially if admin­is­trat­ive delay means that stat­utory time lim­its for tak­ing enforce­ment action have expired. 35. In the light of the changes to enforce­ment con­tained in the Plan­ning etc (Scot­land) Act 2006, all plan­ning author­it­ies are recom­men­ded to carry out a thor­ough review of their pro­ced­ur­al arrange­ments for plan­ning enforce­ment and, where neces­sary, to intro­duce revised arrange­ments. For example, con­sid­er­a­tion should be giv­en to arrange­ments for issu­ing tem­por­ary stop notices, where these may be required to be issued out­side core office hours, such as at week­ends or on pub­lic hol­i­days. 36. Pre­vi­ous research has indic­ated that effect­ive arrange­ments for del­eg­a­tion of enforce­ment powers make for more effect­ive use of powers. Del­eg­a­tion can be achieved by set­ting out clear enforce­ment policies in the devel­op­ment plan, and writ­ten pro­ced­ures for enforce­ment action. Plan­ning author­it­ies have a leg­al require­ment to pre­pare and pub­lish enforce­ment charters which set out writ­ten pro­ced­ures for enforce­ment. RESPOND­ING TO ALLEGED BREACHES OF PLAN­NING CON­TROL 37. Every plan­ning author­ity is required to main­tain an Enforce­ment Charter set­ting out their policies for tak­ing enforce­ment action, as well as inform­a­tion on how the pub­lic can report sus­pec­ted breaches of plan­ning con­trol and the pro­ced­ure for com­plaints regard­ing the tak­ing of enforce­ment action. Charters are required to be kept up-to-date through reg­u­lar reviews and to be pub­licly avail­able on the inter­net and in loc­al lib­rar­ies (Annex M). 8

38. When com­plaints about alleged breaches of plan­ning con­trol are received they should always be prop­erly recor­ded and invest­ig­ated. If the plan­ning author­ity decides to exer­cise their dis­cre­tion not to take form­al enforce­ment action fol­low­ing a com­plaint, they should be pre­pared to explain their reas­ons to any organ­isa­tion or per­son who has asked for an alleged breach of con­trol to be invest­ig­ated. 39. Effect­ive enforce­ment plays a sig­ni­fic­ant part in pro­tect­ing the rur­al and urb­an envir­on­ment. In respond­ing to com­plaints against unau­thor­ised devel­op­ment, enforce­ment action main­tains the integ­rity of the devel­op­ment con­trol sys­tem. The range of enforce­ment powers allows the enforce­ment response to be more appro­pri­ate, speedi­er and more suc­cess­ful. RECORD­ING OF ENFORCE­MENT ACTION

  1. Plan­ning author­it­ies are required to main­tain a register record­ing inform­a­tion regard­ing any: enforce­ment notices, breach of con­di­tion notices, stop notices, tem­por­ary stop notices, and notices under sec­tion 33A (notice requir­ing ret­ro­spect­ive plan­ning applic­a­tion), that they issue. The exact inform­a­tion to be recor­ded var­ies slightly accord­ing to the type of notice. Detailed inform­a­tion on the inform­a­tion required is set out in The Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Enforce­ment of Con­trol) (No.2) (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions 1992, as amended by The Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Mis­cel­laneous Amend­ments) (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions 2009. 41. Every register kept by a plan­ning author­ity is to be kept avail­able for inspec­tion by the pub­lic at all reas­on­able hours. PRE­VI­OUS CIR­CU­LARS CAN­CELLED OR AMENDED 42. This Cir­cu­lar super­sedes Scot­tish Exec­ut­ive Devel­op­ment Depart­ment (SEDD) Cir­cu­lar 4/1999, which is can­celled. FUR­THER ENQUIRIES
  2. Enquir­ies about the con­tent of this Cir­cu­lar should be addressed to Dir­ect­or­ate for the Built Envir­on­ment Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Vic­tor­ia Quay Edin­burgh EH6 6QQ planningmailbox@​scotland.​gsi.​gov.​uk 9

ANNEX A

PLAN­NING ENFORCE­MENT Intro­duc­tion 1. This annex and the fol­low­ing annexes B‑N provide detailed pro­ced­ur­al guid­ance on the use of the powers con­tained in the amended Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 1997. The top­ics covered include: • Time lim­its on enforce­ment action (Sec­tion 124) • • • • • • • • • Ini­ti­ation and com­ple­tion of devel­op­ment and dis­play of notice while devel­op­ment is car­ried out (Sec­tions 27A, 27B, 27C) Notice requir­ing applic­a­tion for plan­ning per­mis­sion for devel­op­ment already car­ried out (Sec­tion 33A) Plan­ning con­tra­ven­tion notices (Sec­tion 125) Rights of entry (Sec­tion 156) Cer­ti­fic­ates of Law­ful Use or Devel­op­ment (Sec­tions 150 – 155) Enforce­ment notices (Sec­tions 127 – 139) Exe­cu­tion of works required by enforce­ment notice (Dir­ect Action) (Sec­tion 135) Stop notices (Sec­tions 140 – 144) Tem­por­ary stop notices (Sec­tion 144A ‑144D) • • Breach of Con­di­tion Notices (Sec­tion 145) • Fixed pen­alty notices (Sec­tion 136A, 145A) 2. • • • Inter­dicts restrain­ing breaches of plan­ning con­trol (Sec­tion 146) Land Adversely Affect­ing Amen­ity of Neigh­bour­hood (Sec­tion 179) Enforce­ment Charters (Sec­tion 158A) The inform­a­tion provided does not pur­port to offer a com­plete descrip­tion of the pro­vi­sions. Nor can it be regarded as an author­it­at­ive inter­pret­a­tion of the law. Its pur­pose is simply to sum­mar­ise the main fea­tures of the legis­la­tion and to identi­fy those pro­vi­sions to which author­it­ies may wish to give their attention.

  1. The over­all effect of the enforce­ment pro­vi­sions now in force should be to enable plan­ning author­it­ies to take effect­ive enforce­ment action more effi­ciently and quickly, includ­ing the invest­ig­a­tion of sus­pec­ted breaches of con­trol. Defin­i­tions used in con­nec­tion with enforce­ment 4. Sec­tion 123 of the 1997 Act defines cer­tain expres­sions used in con­nec­tion with enforce­ment: ​‘A breach of plan­ning con­trol’ is defined as con­sist­ing of: • • car­ry­ing out any devel­op­ment without the required plan­ning per­mis­sion; or fail­ing to com­ply with any con­di­tion or lim­it­a­tion sub­ject to which plan­ning per­mis­sion has been gran­ted; or 10

• ini­ti­at­ing devel­op­ment without giv­ing notice in accord­ance with sec­tion 27A(1); or car­ry­ing out devel­op­ment without dis­play­ing a notice in accord­ance with sec­tion 27C(1) ​‘Tak­ing enforce­ment action’ is defined as issu­ing; 5. • • • an enforce­ment notice (under sec­tion 127); or a breach of con­di­tion notice (under sec­tion 145); or a notice requir­ing applic­a­tion for plan­ning per­mis­sion for devel­op­ment already car­ried out (under sec­tion 33A) Sec­tion 124, which sets out time lim­its for tak­ing enforce­ment action, uses cer­tain expres­sions which require fur­ther inter­pret­a­tion. Mat­ters of inter­pret­a­tion are for the Courts, but the fol­low­ing guid­ance gives an inform­al inter­pret­a­tion of those expres­sions. 6. ​‘Sub­stan­tially com­pleted’ — no enforce­ment action may be taken against any breach of plan­ning con­trol con­sist­ing of the car­ry­ing out without plan­ning per­mis­sion of build­ing, engin­eer­ing, min­ing or oth­er oper­a­tions after a 4‑year peri­od begin­ning with the date on which oper­a­tions were sub­stan­tially com­pleted. What is sub­stan­tially com­plete must always be a mat­ter of fact and degree and of the pre­vail­ing cir­cum­stances in any case. There­fore, it is not pos­sible to define pre­cisely what is meant by the term ​‘sub­stan­tially com­pleted’. In the case of a single oper­a­tion, such as the build­ing of a house, the 4‑year peri­od gen­er­ally would not begin until the entire oper­a­tion was sub­stan­tially com­plete. Argu­ably, in the case of a house, it is not sub­stan­tially com­plete until all the extern­al walls, roof-tiling, wood­work, gut­ter­ing and glaz­ing are com­pleted; but it might be regarded as sub­stan­tially com­plete if only some dec­or­at­ing or intern­al plas­ter­ing work remains to be done, par­tic­u­larly if the build­ing has already been put to use for its inten­ded pur­pose. Each case should be judged on its par­tic­u­lar facts, with all the rel­ev­ant cir­cum­stances being taken into account. 7. ​‘Use as a single dwell­ing­house’ — no enforce­ment action may be taken after a 4‑year peri­od begin­ning with the date of a breach of plan­ning con­trol, where that breach con­sists of a change of use of any build­ing to use as a single dwell­ing­house. How­ever, it is import­ant to recog­nise that a build­ing does not become a single dwell­ing­house simply because its use as such is, by vir­tue of the 4‑year rule, immune from enforce­ment action. Whatever the length of time a build­ing is used as a single dwell­ing­house, it will not neces­sar­ily be regarded as being a dwell­ing­house in fact: that will depend on a num­ber of oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions. Although there is no defin­i­tion of what con­sti­tutes a dwell­ing­house, it is con­sidered pos­sible for a reas­on­able per­son to identi­fy one by sight. If no reas­on­able per­son would identi­fy a par­tic­u­lar struc­ture as a dwell­ing­house, it is jus­ti­fi­able to con­clude, as a mat­ter of fact, that it is not a dwell­ing­house, even if it is being used as such. This is an import­ant dis­tinc­tion which means that a build­ing may be used law­fully as a dwell­ing­house without acquir­ing the ​‘per­mit­ted devel­op­ment’ rights asso­ci­ated with a build­ing that is a dwellinghouse.

  1. The above dis­tinc­tion (between use as and being a dwell­ing­house) is import­ant in cir­cum­stances where people have adap­ted or used unlikely or unusu­al 11

build­ings as their houses. How­ever, under the terms of the Gen­er­al Per­mit­ted Devel­op­ment Order (GPDO) it may also apply, in cer­tain cir­cum­stances, to ordin­ary flats: a flat may be used as a single dwell­ing­house without acquir­ing ​‘per­mit­ted devel­op­ment’ rights, because Art­icle 2 of the GPDO spe­cific­ally excludes them from the defin­i­tion of ​‘dwell­ing­house’ for GPDO pur­poses. The cri­ter­ia for determ­in­ing wheth­er premises are being used as a single dwell­ing­house should include both their phys­ic­al con­di­tion and the man­ner of the use. For the pur­poses of the 1997 Act, a single, self-con­tained set of premises can prop­erly be regarded as being in use as a single dwell­ing­house if it meets the fol­low­ing cri­ter­ia: • • • it com­prises a unit of occu­pa­tion, which can be regarded as a ​‘plan­ning unit’ sep­ar­ate from any oth­er part of a build­ing con­tain­ing it; it is designed or adap­ted for res­id­en­tial pur­poses, con­tain­ing the facil­it­ies for cook­ing, eat­ing and sleep­ing nor­mally asso­ci­ated with use as a dwell­ing­house; it is used as a per­man­ent or tem­por­ary dwell­ing by a single per­son, or by per­sons liv­ing togeth­er as, or like, a single family.

  1. This inter­pret­a­tion would exclude such uses as bed-sit­ting room accom­mod­a­tion, where the occu­pants share some com­mun­al facil­it­ies (eg a bath­room or lav­at­ory) and the ​‘plan­ning unit’ is likely to be the whole build­ing, in use for the pur­poses of mul­tiple res­id­en­tial occu­pancy, rather than each indi­vidu­al unit of accom­mod­a­tion. TIME LIM­ITS ON ENFORCE­MENT ACTION Breaches with a 4‑Year Time Limit
  2. Where a breach of plan­ning con­trol con­sists of the car­ry­ing out of any form of ​‘oper­a­tion­al devel­op­ment’ without plan­ning per­mis­sion, sec­tion 124(1) provides that enforce­ment action may only be taken with­in 4 years of the date on which the oper­a­tions were ​‘sub­stan­tially com­pleted’. This pro­vi­sion extends to build­ing, engin­eer­ing, min­ing and oth­er oper­a­tions in, on, over or under the land.
  3. Where a breach of plan­ning con­trol con­sists of a change of use of any build­ing (which, for the pur­poses of the 1997 Act, includes part of a build­ing) to ​‘use as a single dwell­ing­house’, sec­tion 124(2) provides that enforce­ment action may only be taken with­in 4 years of the date of the breach. This time lim­it applies both where the change to use as a single dwell­ing­house involves devel­op­ment without plan­ning per­mis­sion, and where it involves a fail­ure to com­ply with a con­di­tion or lim­it­a­tion to which a plan­ning per­mis­sion is sub­ject. Breaches with a 10-Year Time Lim­it 12. Where there is any oth­er breach of plan­ning con­trol – i.e. a breach involving any mater­i­al change in the use of land (oth­er than a change to use as a single dwell­ing­house) either without plan­ning per­mis­sion, or in breach of a con­di­tion or lim­it­a­tion to which a plan­ning per­mis­sion is sub­ject — sec­tion 124(3) provides for the 10 year time lim­it on enforce­ment action to apply. 12

Time Lim­its on Sup­ple­ment­ary Enforce­ment Action 13. The time lim­its out­lined above apply to the ​‘first’ tak­ing of enforce­ment action in respect of a breach of plan­ning con­trol. How­ever, in the cir­cum­stances described below it is pos­sible to take sup­ple­ment­ary enforce­ment action out­with the nor­mal time lim­its. 14. Sec­tion 124(4)(a) provides that the time lim­its do not pre­vent the ser­vice of a Breach of Con­di­tion Notice if there is already an effect­ive enforce­ment notice in force in respect of the breach. The plan­ning author­ity may there­fore serve a breach of con­di­tion notice in these cir­cum­stances, even after the nor­mal time lim­it for tak­ing enforce­ment action has expired.

  1. Sec­tion 124(4)(b) caters for anoth­er situ­ation in which enforce­ment action can be taken out­with the nor­mal time lim­its. It provides that the time lim­its do not pre­vent the tak­ing of fur­ther enforce­ment action in respect of any breach of plan­ning con­trol if, dur­ing the peri­od of 4 years end­ing with that action being taken, the plan­ning author­ity have taken or pur­por­ted to take pre­vi­ous enforce­ment action in respect of the same breach. This mainly deals with the situ­ation where earli­er enforce­ment action has been taken, with­in the rel­ev­ant time lim­it but, for whatever reas­on, fur­ther action is required even though the nor­mal time lim­it for such action has since expired. In this event, the plan­ning author­ity now has a fur­ther 4 years, after their ini­tial, or most recent, enforce­ment action, in which to take fur­ther enforce­ment action. An example would be where a notice issued under sec­tion 33A (requir­ing sub­mis­sion of a ret­ro­spect­ive plan­ning applic­a­tion) has been ignored and the plan­ning author­ity con­siders it neces­sary to issue an enforce­ment notice. 13

ANNEX B

NOTI­FIC­A­TION OF INI­TI­ATION AND COM­PLE­TION OF DEVEL­OP­MENT AND DIS­PLAY OF NOTICES WHILE DEVEL­OP­MENT IS CAR­RIED OUT Pro­vi­sions 1. Sec­tion 27A (1) of the 1997 Act (intro­duced by sec­tion 6 of the 2006 Act) requires that a plan­ning author­ity be noti­fied of the date work is expec­ted to com­mence before the work actu­ally com­mences on any devel­op­ment for which plan­ning per­mis­sion has been gran­ted. It is not a breach of plan­ning con­trol where a developer does not com­mence work on the exact date spe­cified in the notice but at some point after­wards. There may be a num­ber of reas­ons (not neces­sar­ily under the con­trol of the developer) why work does not com­mence on the spe­cified date. 2. Sec­tion 27A(2) requires the plan­ning author­ity, when grant­ing per­mis­sion, to make the applic­ant aware that they are required to sub­mit such a notice and that fail­ure to do so would be a breach of plan­ning con­trol which might res­ult in enforce­ment action being taken.

  1. Developers are fur­ther required to tell the plan­ning author­ity under sec­tion 27B(1) when that work is com­pleted. In addi­tion, sec­tion 27B(2) provides that, where the plan­ning applic­a­tion states that the devel­op­ment is to be car­ried out in phases, then it is to be a con­di­tion of any plan­ning approv­al that a notice of com­ple­tion is also to be sub­mit­ted at the com­ple­tion of each phase.
  2. Sec­tion 27C requires that for cer­tain types of devel­op­ment, inform­a­tion regard­ing the devel­op­ment must be dis­played on the site. The inform­a­tion would be required to be dis­played in such a way that it was access­ible for the pub­lic, with reg­u­la­tions defin­ing the con­tent and pos­i­tion­ing of the sign. It would con­sti­tute a breach of plan­ning con­trol not to dis­play such a notice if the nature of the devel­op­ment required it.
  3. Fur­ther detail as to the sub­mis­sion or dis­play of these notices, and the con­tent of any such notice is set out in The Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment Pro­ced­ure) (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions 2008 (reg­u­la­tions 37 & 38) and Cir­cu­lar 4/2009. Enforce­ment action in regard of fail­ure to dis­play or sub­mit any notice required under sec­tion 27A, sec­tion 27B or sec­tion 27C
  4. Fail­ure to sub­mit a notice of Ini­ti­ation of Devel­op­ment or to dis­play a notice as required under sec­tion 27C con­sti­tutes a breach of plan­ning con­trol. Fail­ure to sub­mit Notices of Com­ple­tion of Devel­op­ment may con­sti­tute a breach (or breaches) of con­di­tion depend­ing on the devel­op­ment in ques­tion. 7. The pur­pose of requir­ing these notices to be sub­mit­ted is to alert the plan­ning author­ity and, in the case of notices under sec­tion 27C the gen­er­al pub­lic, to act­ive devel­op­ment in their area. 14

8. In con­sid­er­ing wheth­er a breach of plan­ning con­trol has been com­mit­ted, and if so what action it would be appro­pri­ate to take, plan­ning author­it­ies are expec­ted to apply the nor­mal con­sid­er­a­tions as to what is reas­on­able action in respect of any par­tic­u­lar breach. With regard to enforce­ment action, an inform­al approach may be suf­fi­cient to res­ult in a notice being sub­mit­ted, albeit late.

  1. While in itself a fail­ure to sub­mit or dis­play a notice in accord­ance with the require­ments of the rel­ev­ant sec­tions may in some cases be con­sidered a rel­at­ively minor breach and not mer­it­ing form­al enforce­ment action, plan­ning author­it­ies should bear in mind that where notices have not been sub­mit­ted, there is the poten­tial that fur­ther breaches of plan­ning con­trol have occurred. For example, where noti­fic­a­tion of ini­ti­ation of devel­op­ment has not been sub­mit­ted before devel­op­ment has commenced
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