Over the past year, the Planning Enforcement team has been working tirelessly to uphold planning regulations and protect Mid Devon communities.

Each year the Council deals with around 200 planning enforcement cases, investigating alleged planning breaches, responding to appeals, serving notices and liaising with partner agencies such as the police, Environment Agency, housing authorities and highways. This high case load means that the authority has to prioritise the highest risk and most impactful cases and, given that these cases are often complex and often involve dealing with challenging individuals, significant time is taken up in moving cases forwards to resolution.  

Despite this, in the previous 12 months alone the planning enforcement team has served 18 enforcement notices, with a further 16 enforcement notices currently being actioned. Their work has resulted in two successful prosecutions, with a further nine cases being processed through the courts. This despite the fact that planning enforcement is a discretionary service which the Council is neither required nor funded to undertake. One of those successful enforcement actions has been a long-running case in the village of Puddington, where the Council successfully removed a large shipping container that had been unlawfully installed on land.

An enforcement notice for the removal of the container had been served on the owners of the land who rented the container, which did not have planning permission. In addition to the enforcement notice there was also a High Court injunction for the removal of the container, which had not been complied with.

As the planning dispute had been ongoing for a number of years, without resolution by the landowner, the Planning Enforcement Officers had to work out the simplest and most effective way  to remove the container.  This involved liaising with the company that owned the container, who rented it to the person subject of the enforcement notice, as well meeting with representatives of the parish council and liaising with other agencies.

The planned operation took several hours to complete, as the shipping container was full of items that had to be removed before the container could be taken from the site. However, after working with the Council’s property services team, planners and local police, the task was completed and the container successfully removed.

Cllr Steve Keable, Cabinet Member for Planning and Economic Regeneration, said:

“This is just one case, in many, but it demonstrates how a simple sounding task can take significant time and effort to resolve and that Mid Devon is committed to taking proactive planning enforcement action. I would like to thank everyone involved and who supported and enabled the removal of the container. I am sure this action is something which the community will be delighted with.  Our officers are continuing to work through a significant case load and will take action against those who do not think the planning rules apply to them.”