Temporary stop notice or stop notice: which applies

A temporary stop notice halts an activity for up to 56 days and can be served on its own. A full stop notice cannot: it only works alongside an enforcement notice, and it carries a real risk that the council will have to pay compensation. That is the whole difference between a temporary stop notice or stop notice decision, and it explains why most councils reach for the temporary version first when they find development under way without permission.

If one has landed on your site, the practical position is the same for both. Neither can be appealed. Both create a criminal offence the moment work continues. The route out runs through compliance and then negotiation, not through the appeal system.

What each notice stops, and for how long

A temporary stop notice is made under section 171E of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The local planning authority has to think there has been a breach of planning control and that it is expedient the activity stops straight away. No enforcement notice is needed first. The notice specifies the activity, and it lapses automatically at the end of the period stated on it. In England that period runs to a maximum of 56 days, extended from 28 days by the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023.

The council gets one temporary stop notice per breach. It cannot serve a second one for the same activity unless it has taken some other enforcement step in the meantime, which is the pressure valve that stops rolling 56-day bans.

A stop notice under section 183 works differently. It must relate to a breach that is already the subject of an enforcement notice, it has to be served before that enforcement notice takes effect, and it lasts until the enforcement notice takes effect, is withdrawn or is quashed. So it is a bridge across the appeal period, designed to stop damage happening while an appeal runs.

Both notices have carve-outs. Neither can prohibit the use of a building as a dwellinghouse. Neither can stop something that has already run long enough to be immune from enforcement, and since the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 moved the general immunity period to ten years, check the current wording of sections 171F and 183 rather than relying on an older textbook. Operational development and the unauthorised deposit of waste sit outside that protection.

Service, display and the date a notice bites

A temporary stop notice takes effect when a copy is displayed on the land, together with a statement of the effect of the notice and of the offence of contravening it. That display is the trigger. An officer can pin it to the hoarding at 10am and the prohibition is live before your site manager has finished reading it. Copies also go to the person carrying on the activity and to anyone with an interest in the land, but the display does the legal work.

A stop notice is served on people who appear to have an interest in the land or to be engaged in the activity. It usually takes effect three days after service at the earliest, though the council can specify an earlier date where there are special reasons, which it must state. Councils may also display a site notice, and if they do, anyone contravening after display is treated as having been served.

Read the wording of the prohibited activity very closely. Notices are often drafted around one specific operation, and work that falls outside that description is not caught. Equally, a notice drafted around "the importation of materials" catches more than the tipping you were actually doing.

Compensation exposure and why it shapes council behaviour

Section 186 is the reason enforcement officers hesitate over a full stop notice. Compensation for loss or damage attributable to the prohibition becomes payable where the related enforcement notice is quashed on any ground other than that planning permission ought to be granted, where it is varied so the activity stops being a relevant activity, where it is withdrawn other than because permission has been granted, or where the stop notice itself is withdrawn.

For a housebuilder with a groundworks contractor standing idle, that sum is not theoretical. Preliminaries, plant hire, extended programme costs and subcontractor claims all follow. A council that is unsure about the drafting of its enforcement notice knows it may be buying those costs.

Section 171H, which covers temporary stop notices, is narrower. It bites mainly where the activity turns out to have had permission all along or where the notice is withdrawn in defined circumstances. That asymmetry is exactly why the temporary route is used more often, and why you should not assume a compensation claim will be straightforward.

Offences, fines and the position of individuals

Contravening either notice is a criminal offence. For temporary stop notices the offence sits in section 171G; for stop notices it is section 187. Both are triable either way and carry an unlimited fine in England, and the court is directed to have regard to any financial benefit that has accrued or is likely to accrue from the breach. That last point matters on commercial sites, because profit from the unauthorised activity feeds into the penalty rather than sitting outside it.

Liability can reach the person carrying out the activity, not only the landowner. A haulage firm tipping under instruction is exposed alongside the site owner. There is a defence where the accused can show the notice was not served on them and they did not know, and had no reasonable cause to know, of its existence. Do not plan around that defence once officers have visited and photographs exist.

How each notice sits alongside an enforcement notice

A stop notice is parasitic on its enforcement notice. Quash the enforcement notice and the stop notice falls with it, which is the hook for a compensation claim. Win the enforcement appeal on the merits and you get your permission, your costs position and, in the right circumstances, your compensation.

A temporary stop notice is a holding measure. In the 56 days it buys, the council will usually decide whether to issue an enforcement notice, invite a retrospective application, or do nothing further. Those 56 days are the window in which the outcome is actually decided, so use them: get a Planning Statement drafted that sets out the policy case for what is on the ground, and identify which technical documents the council will want with a regularising application.

If you are regularising work on a dwelling, the application route matters as much as the evidence, and the choice between a householder and a full application changes the fee and the publicity. Our comparison of the householder and full application routes sets out where the line falls.

Challenging a notice you think is wrong

There is no statutory appeal against either notice. That surprises people. The available routes are judicial review of the decision to serve, an appeal against the underlying enforcement notice under section 174 where one exists, a compensation claim after the event, and persuasion.

Persuasion is undervalued. A carefully drafted letter showing that the activity is lawful, that it falls outside the description in the notice, or that it has been carried on long enough to be immune often gets a notice withdrawn faster than any formal challenge. Provide dated evidence: invoices, delivery notes, aerial imagery, tenancy agreements. Officers will not withdraw on assertion alone.

Judicial review has a three-month outer limit and requires promptness, and the court reviews the legality of the decision rather than its planning merits. It is rarely proportionate for a 56-day prohibition. It becomes arguable where a council has stacked notices, ignored the dwellinghouse restriction or served in bad faith.

What to do in the first 48 hours

1. Stop the activity described in the notice, exactly as described, and record the time you stopped.
2. Photograph the displayed notice and the site as it stands, with metadata intact.
3. Establish the date the notice takes effect and the date it expires, and diarise both.
4. Check the restrictions: is any part of the activity the use of a building as a dwellinghouse, and how long has it actually been running.
5. Tell your contractor in writing, because their continued work is their offence as well as yours.
6. Open a line to the case officer the same week and ask what they want to see in a regularising application.

Sites that come out of this well are the ones that treat the notice as the start of an evidence exercise. Sites that come out badly are the ones that keep a digger running for another afternoon. And the difference in cost between those two choices is usually an order of magnitude.

Enforcement is one of the few areas of planning where the procedural detail matters more than the policy argument, so read the notice itself before you read anything else. If the outcome is a retrospective application, browsing the full list of report types will show which supporting documents a council is likely to ask for alongside it.

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.