Summary of appeals at October 2014 under S.55 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990

This article is an appendix to: Appeals against urgent works notices, written by Bob Kindred MBE BA IHBC MRTPI from The Institute of Historic Building Conservation. It combines the data from cases 1-8 provided by DCMS in 2003 and published in Context, September 2003 with cases 9-30 helpfully provided by Heritage Protection Branch in October 2014. The original article can be seen here.

Grounds for Appeal	SoS Determination of the Outcome
Case 1 Unreasonable cost	Found in favour of the local planning authority
Case 2 Hardship	Found in favour of the local planning authority
Case 3 Unnecessary works	Found in favour of the local planning authority
Case 4 Unreasonable cost, hardship	Two of the owners had to pay costs, one did not due to hardship
Case 5 Unnecessary works, unreasonable cost, hardship	Found in favour of the local planning authority
Case 6 Unreasonable cost	Found in favour of the local planning authority with some reduction in costs
Case 7 Unreasonable cost	Found in favour of the local planning authority
Case 8 Hardship	Found in favour of the owner
Case 9* Unnecessary works, unreasonable cost, hardship	Found in favour of local planning authority
Case 10 Unnecessary works, temporary arrangements continued for an unreasonable length of time, unreasonable cost, hardship	Found in favour of local planning authority
Case 11 Notices not served on the owner	Notices invalid, found in favour of the owner
Case 12 S.54 notice incorrectly served, unnecessary works, unreasonable cost	Found in favour of local planning authority
Case 13 Intention to appeal, no grounds submitted	No grounds submitted, invalid appeal
Case 14 Unnecessary works, temporary arrangements continued for an unreasonable length of time, unreasonable cost	Found in favour of local planning authority
Case 15 Unnecessary works, unreasonable cost	Found in favour of local planning authority
Case 16 Unreasonable cost	Found in favour of local planning authority
Case 17* Unnecessary works, hardship	Found in favour of local planning authority
Case 18 Unnecessary works	Costs shared – 67% owner, 33% LPA
Case 19 Unnecessary works, temporary arrangements continued for an unreasonable length of time, unreasonable cost	Found in favour of local planning authority
Case 20 Notices not served on the owner	Notices invalid, found in favour of the owner
Case 21 Intention to appeal, no grounds submitted	Out of time and no grounds submitted, invalid appeal
Case 22 Intention to appeal, no grounds submitted	No grounds submitted, invalid appeal
Case 23 Intention to appeal, no grounds submitted	No grounds submitted, invalid appeal
Case 24 Objection to a s.54 notice	No s.55 notice subsequently served, no appeal necessary
Case 25 Invalid notices, unnecessary works, unreasonable cost	Costs shared - 88% owner, 12% LPA
Case 26 Unnecessary works	Costs shared – 47% owner, 53% LPA
Case 27 Appeal withdrawn as the LA purchased the building and the cost of the Urgent Works was settled in the purchase price.	N/A

Notes: Cases 9 & 17 - very small deductions of less than 1% were made from the amount claimed by the LPA As of October 2014 DCMS had one further undetermined open case. Four of the cases represent S.55 notices being served twice on two buildings but relating to different Urgent Works in each case. One of the buildings was/is owned by a building preservation trust. LBC for demolition of the building and redevelopment of the site had been refused and the building was being allowed to fall into disrepair. The trust transferred ownership to another trust just before the S.54 notice was served. The LPA didn’t check ownership immediately before serving and so the notice was invalid. The trust didn’t inform the LPA of the change of ownership until after the LPA had carried out the works. The LPA, therefore, weren’t able to re-serve the s.54 notice or to recover costs. The two trusts had the same address (a garage with no means to receive post) and shared trustees. The contact phone number for both trusts was that of a property developer. One of the trusts was a member of the Association of UK Preservation Trusts but it has now been removed from the membership of UK APT.

--Institute of Historic Building Conservation

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