Section 215 notice: untidy land and buildings

A section 215 notice is the tool a council uses when land or a building looks so bad that it harms the appearance of the area. Section 215 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 lets the local planning authority serve notice on the owner and occupier requiring steps to be taken to remedy the condition of the land, within a period the notice specifies. No breach of planning control is needed. The test is amenity, not lawfulness.

That is what makes it useful to neighbours and parish councils. The derelict shop with boarded windows, the garden full of scrap, the half-built house that has sat open to the weather for four years: none of those necessarily involves anything unlawful, and the ordinary enforcement powers do not reach them.

What the power allows

The council may require steps to remedy the condition of the land. In practice that means painting, boarding properly and tidily, clearing rubbish, repairing or removing a structure, fencing, cutting back vegetation or making good a boundary wall.

Land includes buildings, so the power reaches a building's external condition as well as the ground around it.

What the notice cannot do is require works that go beyond remedying the condition. A council cannot use section 215 to make an owner renovate a building to a standard it prefers, to bring an empty property back into use, or to achieve a design outcome. The steps have to be directed at the harm to amenity.

The amenity test

The statutory trigger is that it appears to the authority that the amenity of a part of their area is adversely affected by the condition of the land.

Amenity is not defined, which gives councils a wide discretion and gives owners an argument. In practice the questions officers ask are whether the condition is visible from public places, how it compares with the general standard of the surrounding area, whether it has deteriorated over time, and whether it attracts other problems such as fly-tipping or vermin.

The comparison with the surroundings matters. A scrap-filled yard in an industrial estate where every plot looks similar is a harder case than the same yard in a residential street, because the effect on the amenity of that part of the area is smaller.

There is an important exclusion. Where the condition of the land results, in the ordinary course of events, from operations or a use that is not in breach of planning control, the notice is open to challenge. A working quarry looks like a quarry, and section 215 is not a way to attack a lawful use.

The notice, the period and the steps

A valid notice specifies the steps required and the period within which they must be taken. It cannot take effect less than 28 days after service.

Precision matters as much as it does in any enforcement document. "Tidy the site" is unenforceable. "Remove all scrap metal, tyres and builders' waste from the land edged red on the attached plan, and repair the boundary fence along its northern edge to a height of 1.8 metres" is capable of being complied with and of being prosecuted.

The compliance period has to be realistic for the works required. Four weeks to clear a garden is reasonable; four weeks to re-roof a derelict building is not, and that is an appeal ground in itself.

Where the building is listed, section 215 sits alongside more specialist powers over historic buildings, and councils often prefer those. An owner served with a notice on a listed building will need a proper understanding of the building before doing anything, since unauthorised repairs can themselves be an offence. That usually means a condition report, a structural survey where stability is in question, and a Heritage Statement to support any consent application for the works the notice requires.

Appealing to the magistrates court

The appeal route is unusual. It goes to the magistrates court, not to the Planning Inspectorate, and it must be brought before the notice takes effect.

The grounds are set out in the Act:

• That the condition of the land does not adversely affect the amenity of any part of the area.
• That the condition results, in the ordinary course of events, from operations or a use that is not in breach of planning control.
• That the requirements of the notice exceed what is necessary to prevent the condition from adversely affecting amenity.
• That the period for compliance is unreasonably short.

The third ground is the one that most often succeeds in part, with the court varying the notice rather than quashing it. A further appeal lies to the Crown Court.

Missing the deadline is fatal in practice, and the deadline is the date the notice takes effect rather than any later date.

Non-compliance, works in default and cost recovery

Failing to comply with a notice within the period is an offence, punishable by a fine on summary conviction, with a further daily fine where the failure continues after conviction.

Prosecution is not the only route, and often not the preferred one. The Act also allows the council to enter the land, carry out the steps required by the notice itself, and recover its reasonable expenses from the person who is then the owner. That is what councils mean by works in default.

For neighbours, the cost recovery point is the one to press. A council reluctant to prosecute may be much more willing to clear a site and bill the owner, particularly where the property has value and the debt can be recovered on sale.

How it differs from enforcing a breach

An enforcement notice under the enforcement provisions of the Act requires a breach of planning control: development without permission, or a failure to comply with a condition. Section 215 requires no breach at all.

The two are sometimes used together. A yard being used unlawfully for vehicle dismantling might attract an enforcement notice for the unauthorised use and a section 215 notice for the mess, and they run on separate tracks with separate appeal routes.

Immunity periods do not help an owner here. A condition that has persisted for fifteen years is still a condition adversely affecting amenity today, and section 215 can be used against it.

Asking a council to use the power

The power is discretionary, and councils vary widely in how much use they make of it. Some run proactive programmes on shopfronts and empty properties. Others use it only on complaint.

If you are asking for a notice to be served, give the officer what they need to act:

1. The address and, if you can, the ownership from the Land Registry title.
2. Dated photographs from public vantage points, ideally over a period showing deterioration.
3. A short description of the effect on the area, in amenity terms rather than as personal annoyance.
4. Any related history: fly-tipping reports, pest complaints, fire service call-outs.

Put it in writing to the enforcement team and ask for the case reference. Councils publish enforcement policies setting out how they prioritise, and a complaint framed against the criteria in that policy is harder to close without action.

If you are on the other side, preparing an application for the works a notice requires, browse the report types by category or enter your postcode to see what the site needs.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.