Enforcement appeal ground (g) and the compliance period

Ground (g) of an enforcement notice appeal asks for one thing: more time. Section 174(2)(g) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 allows an appeal on the basis that the period specified for compliance falls short of what should reasonably be allowed, and section 173(9) is what requires the authority to specify that period in the first place. The appeal does not argue the development is acceptable and does not argue the requirements are excessive. It argues that 28 days is not long enough to close a business, strip out a kitchen and reinstate a unit.

Inspectors grant more time regularly, and they grant it on evidence. A ground (g) appeal supported by nothing but an assertion that the period is unreasonable tends to fail.

What the compliance period has to allow for

The period runs from the date the notice takes effect, which is normally 28 days after service unless an appeal is made. Lodging an appeal suspends the notice until the appeal is decided, so the act of appealing already buys time, and inspectors know that.

What the period has to accommodate is everything between the effective date and full compliance. For a commercial occupier that usually means a sequence rather than a single task: finding alternative premises, negotiating a lease, obtaining any licences, fitting out, moving, ceasing the unauthorised activity, then carrying out any physical reinstatement the notice requires.

A notice can specify different periods for different steps, and that is often the sensible outcome. Ceasing an activity can happen quickly. Removing a mezzanine and reinstating a shopfront cannot.

Evidence of what the works actually take

The documents that persuade are mundane. A programme, prepared by someone who builds things, showing each activity, its duration and its dependencies. Quotations with lead times stated. Correspondence showing when a contractor can start.

Three features make a programme credible:

• It starts from the notice's effective date rather than from today, and shows the critical path.
• It separates procurement lead times from on-site durations, because a six week wait for a shopfront is real time even though nobody is on site.
• It identifies what cannot be compressed, such as a statutory undertaker disconnection or a licensing decision with a published determination period.

What does not persuade is a round number. A request for 12 months with no breakdown reads as a request for delay, and inspectors say so in decisions.

Business relocation and lead times

Where compliance means the business has to move or close, relocation is the substance of the ground (g) case. The evidence has to show a real search rather than an intention to look.

That means a record of premises viewed with dates, agents instructed, offers made and why they failed, and the specification the business actually needs. An occupier requiring three-phase power, extraction to roof level and parking for a van is in a narrower market than one requiring a shop unit, and saying so with particulars is what turns a general complaint into evidence.

Employment and contractual commitments carry some weight too. Staff notice periods, a supply contract with a fixed term, equipment on a lease that cannot be terminated early. None of these is decisive, and together they build a picture of how long an orderly wind-down takes.

Where the business is in an employment area and the underlying planning issue is the loss or protection of employment floorspace, the arguments overlap with those in refusals on loss of employment land and how to answer them.

Seasonal and licensing constraints

Some constraints are outside anyone's control and are worth setting out separately because they are easy for an inspector to accept.

Bats or nesting birds in a roof structure that has to be removed bring a licensing and seasonal constraint, and work cannot lawfully proceed without the right survey and, where a roost is affected, a licence obtained by a suitably licensed ecologist. That is a legal constraint on the timing of compliance, not a preference.

Licensing of other kinds behaves similarly. A premises licence transfer, a food business registration at new premises, or a waste carrier registration each has a process with a timescale. So does a street works permit for a crossover reinstatement.

Agricultural and horticultural cases often turn on the growing or grazing cycle. Requiring stock to be removed mid-season, or a crop to be abandoned, is the kind of point inspectors respond to where it is evidenced by the cycle rather than asserted.

How inspectors assess reasonableness

The approach visible across decisions is a balance between the harm continuing during the extended period and the practical difficulty of complying sooner. Those decisions are indicative of how the question is approached rather than binding precedent.

Where the harm is serious and immediate, such as a use causing real amenity harm to neighbours every evening, inspectors are reluctant to extend far. Where the harm is modest, technical or largely visual, a longer period is easier to justify.

Two factors cut against an appellant. A history of ignoring correspondence from the authority before the notice was served, which suggests the time already available was not used. And an absence of any step taken since service, which suggests the extended period will be used the same way.

So start complying while the appeal is pending, and say what you have done. An appellant who has instructed a contractor, applied for a licence and viewed six premises is asking for time to finish something. An appellant who has done nothing is asking for time to begin.

Running ground (g) alongside other grounds

Ground (g) sits comfortably with the other grounds and carries no fee of its own. The deemed application fee arises from ground (a), which puts the planning merits in issue, so an appeal on grounds (a) and (g) together costs what ground (a) costs.

The combination that works is ground (a) with ground (g) as the fallback: permission ought to be granted, and if it is not, this much time is needed. Where ground (a) is hopeless, running ground (g) alone is a legitimate and low cost way to get a realistic period, and it does not require you to argue a case you do not believe.

There is a quieter route that is often better than any appeal. Section 173A of the 1990 Act allows the authority to withdraw a notice or to extend the period for compliance. A letter to the enforcement officer with the programme attached, asking for an extension under that section and committing to a date, sometimes achieves in two weeks what an appeal achieves in nine months, and it costs nothing. Read the notice carefully first, with the same attention you would give a refusal notice, because the steps and the period are separate and you need to be clear which you are asking to change.

An illustrative example

A hot food takeaway operates from a unit permitted for retail use, with a flue added to the rear elevation. The notice requires the use to cease and the flue to be removed within three months. On ground (g) the operator submits a programme showing a four week search for alternative premises already under way, a six week lead time for the replacement shopfront, an eight week fit-out at the new unit, and a licensing timescale for the food business registration. The appeal seeks nine months, with a shorter period for removal of the flue than for cessation of the use. This example is illustrative and not a prediction of any appeal outcome.

What happens if the period expires

Failure to comply with an enforcement notice once the period has expired is an offence under section 179 of the 1990 Act, prosecuted in the magistrates' court or on indictment, with fines that can be substantial and which take account of any financial benefit from the breach.

The authority also has powers under section 178 to enter the land, carry out the required steps itself and recover its reasonable costs from the owner. That is the outcome to avoid, because the authority's contractor will not be the one you would have chosen and the bill arrives afterwards.

Where compliance is under way but will overrun, write to the authority before the date rather than after it. Enforcement officers have discretion about prosecution and they exercise it on the basis of whether someone is trying.

And if the underlying use is one you want to keep, the better answer is usually a properly argued application. A Planning Statement addressing the reasons the authority took action, with the mitigation it was looking for, is a stronger position than a sequence of appeals. The documents such an application needs can be identified from the report types index.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Enforcement appeals have strict deadlines and failure to comply with a notice is a criminal offence, so take advice from a qualified planning professional on your own notice.