Business vehicles on highway - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)
Open group
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Started - July 2012
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Last activity - Yesterday
Business vehicles on highway
A mini bus business is being run from a residential dwellinghouse. One room is being used within the dwelling to take and receive calls in connection with the business. This in itself is not considered a material change of use, however, all/some of the vehicles – up to four 16 seater mini buses and at least once a week, a large coach - are parked upon the highway adjacent/near to the dwellinghouse. There is no room for them to be parked within the curtilage of the dwellinghouse. Drivers are employed and drive to the property, park their vehicles in the street and collect a mini bus. Negotiations with the owner of the property to park the vehicles at a storage facility have failed. The activity of the business is affecting the residential amenity of other properties in the area, therefore the Council are considering taking formal enforcement action against the use. Has anyone ever enforced against a similar situation where vehicles are parked on the highway rather than within the curtilage of a property? If so what was the description of the land on the notice and what area was outlined in red on the plan? If an appeal was lodged against any enforcement notice, what was the appeal decision?
Sally, I would not recommend enforcing under the TCPA in this instance. For one thing if your Local Authority is the LPA and also the highway authority you will have to serve an enforcement notice on the highway authority as a party with a legal interest in the land subject of the notice. There is nothing in the regs to prevent this from happening and I have heard of other authorities doing so but you will have one head of service signing delegated authority to serve a notice on another council function, not an ideal situation at all. Also the red line boundary will b very problematic. To what extent do yuo make the red line boundary and if you decide on a prticular boundary the coach operator could then just park the vehicles outside of this boundary and you are left with the same problem.
Sally I dealt with a similar situation many years ago, although vehicles were parked within the curtilage as well as on the highway. My authority took the view that the house was being used as an operating centre for the mini bus business as the drivers called there daily to receive instructions and be paid and also left their cars when they picked up the mini buses. We issued an enforcement notice on the basis of a material change of use from a dwelling to a mixed use for residential and as an operating centre for the business. The red line referred to the curtilage of the residential property only as it was felt that planning could not control the parking of vehicles on the public highway. The owner of the property appealed against the enforcement notice but the appeal was dismissed. Unfortunately this was a long time ago and I no longer work for the same Authority so can't access the files.
For Sue Taylor. Very interested in your response. Our solicitors considered that this may be the way to go. Which authority issued the notice and I will try and contact them? Can you recall the address and the approximate year the notice was issued?