Licence to CIL: Self-Build Relief in the High Court & Other News

In a slight change to our scheduled programming*, this post takes a look at a recent High Court decision on CIL Self-Build Relief, a Court of Appeal decision about caravans, and a real life, animatronic, Jurassic Park.

I have decided to go slightly niche with the case-law this week. Largely as the planning news has been dominated by Injunctions and NDMPS, so these decisions may well have flown slightly under the radar… but also because I quite like CIL, and caravans, and dinosaurs are always worth talking about.

CIL Bill – Self-Build Relief in the High Court

On 14 November, the High Court handed down its decision in Luck, R (On the Application Of) v Bracknell Forest Borough Council [2025] EWHC 2984 (Admin), which considered the, often vexing, question of when and in what circumstances it is possible to lose self-build relief under the CIL regulations.

The facts of the case are a little complicated, but can be summarised as follows:

• Person A applied for self-build relief for Permission A
• Permission A is implemented, but never completed – so a compliance certificate is never issued.
• Person A sells the site to Person B, but does not inform the Council about the sale, nor do they transfer the CIL Liability for Permission A as part of the transaction.
• Person B applies for Permission B, which is granted, and then seeks a fresh application for self-build relief from the Council in respect of Permission B.
• The self-build relief application for Permission B was originally refused, as an exemption already existing for Permission A, but was subsequently granted when the Council was informed that Permission A would not be completed.
• The Council then serves demand notices seeking to recover the CIL liability for Permission A – on the basis that the Permission A had now lost the benefit of its self-build relief under the CIL Regulations.

The claimant judicially reviewed the decision to issue the liability and demand notices for Permission A. The challenge was brought on two grounds:

1. Ground One: the Council has been wrong to withdraw self-build relief from Permission A as had been no disqualifying event under Regulation 54D, as a disqualifying event can only occur during the clawback period, i.e. three years from the compliance certificate under the Building Regulations. Here, the clawback period had not begun and thus there was no disqualifying event.
2. Ground Two: the Council had erred in law in asserting that it had no discretion to waive CIL liability under the regulations, and, in the alternative, to the degree that the Council did exercise a discretion it has done so unlawfully.

Both grounds of challenge got fairly short shrift by the Court.

On ground one the Court found that:

“106. The starting point in statutory interpretation is the words of the statute or regulation, see Lord Hodge in Project for Registration of British Children at [29]. Although that case concerned primary legislation, whereas the present case concerns secondary legislation, the same principle must apply, albeit with perhaps slightly less force.

107. Here Regulation 54D(1) says “a disqualifying event occurs before the end of the clawback period”. It does not say the DE has to occur during the clawback period. The alleged DE, the sale of the property, did occur “before the end” of the clawback period. Therefore, the actual words are strongly in the Defendant’s favour.” ….

109. Importantly, as the caselaw makes clear, this is a very detailed and comprehensive scheme for CIL as a whole, and the self-build exemption specifically. The court should therefore in my view be very cautious about reading words or conditions or limitations into the Regulations that do not appear on their face.

110. I agree with the Defendant that given that the exemption can be claimed, and thus the levy not paid, before the beginning of the clawback period, there is considerable logic in it being able to be withdrawn before the end of the period. The result of the Claimant’s argument is that an individual could gain the benefit of the exemption throughout the period that the dwelling was being constructed and right up to the service of the completion notice, even though the individual was well aware that the development was no longer eligible for the self-build exemption. This becomes even odder in cases where no compliance notice is served. The onus then falls on the Council to determine whether the development has been completed before it can require the full CIL to be paid.

111. In my view the much more obvious and logical construction is that as soon as a DE occurs under Regulation 54D(2) then the exemption ceases to apply and the full CIL becomes payable.“

On ground two, the Court held that:

“118. Quite apart from the detail of the Regulations, there are two overarching reasons why it would be surprising if there was a broad discretion to waive CIL. Firstly, as is set out by the High Court in Clamp, one would not normally expect a tax collecting authority to have an unfettered discretion to waive the tax that Parliament had set. That point is even stronger here than in Clamp, because the local authority under the CIL regime is not in the same position as HMRC with broad management powers and a fairly wide discretion to reach “arrangements” with the taxpayer. So, it is even less likely that the local authority would have such a broad discretion to waive liability.

119. Secondly, to construe Regulation 65(7) as a broad discretion to waive CIL seems inconsistent with the rest of the Regulations. It would be a wholly unfettered discretion, with no criteria set out, in marked contrast to Regulation 55. There is no parallel power in relation to demand notices, so if the liability notice can simply be withdrawn, the court would have to imply into the Regulations a power for the demand notice to be withdrawn or to cease to have effect. The Claimant argues that by withdrawing the liability notice the underlying liability itself ceases. However, for Regulation 65(7) to have this effect would be inconsistent with the Court of Appeal decision in Braithwaite, which held that the liability continues to exist even where the liability notice is withdrawn.

121. The final issue is whether, if I am wrong above and there is a discretion to waive liability, the Defendant lawfully exercised that discretion. The Claimant submits that the Defendant has unlawfully fettered its discretion by relying on “consistency” to in effect decide that the discretion will not be exercised. However, the letter of 4th September 2025 does take into account the relevant considerations, namely what the Claimant had said about his personal circumstances (although he had given no verifiable financial information), the scheme of the Regulations, and the issue of “double recovery”. In my view, on the facts of the case, the Defendant was entitled to refuse to exercise the discretion, assuming it had one, having considered the relevant circumstances.””

Which, in short, means that:

• You can lose the benefit of Self-Build Relief before the development is completed, if a disqualifying event occurs during construction; and
• There is no broad and open-ended discretion for a charging authority to waive a CIL liability that has properly arisen on a development.

Court of Appeal on Caravans

On 12 November, the Court of Appeal decided Haytop Country Park Ltd v Amber Valley Borough Council [2025] EWCA Civ 1442.

The case considers looked the interplay between planning permission for caravan sites and the provisions of the relevant site licence – which is helpful as it is not at all uncommon for the two sets of controls to get somewhat out of sync.

I am not going to get into the facts of the case, as they are somewhat complex and enforcement related. On a more general basis, however, the decision does confirm that:

• It is a pre-requisite for the grant of a caravan site licence that the applicant is entitled to rely upon an express grant of planning permission for the use of the land as a caravan site (s.3(3) of the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 (“the 1960 Act” )) [para 87].
• It does have to be an express grant of planning permission – relying on permitted development rights is not enough to meet the requirements of s.3(3)of the 1960 Act [para 109]; and
• The site licence has to be in harmony, and not in conflict, with the terms of the planning permission it relies on. Although a site licence can impose tighter obligations or restrictions than the underlying planning permission, it cannot have the effect of enlarging the planning permission or relaxing the requirements of its conditions [para 97].

All of which is a helpful reminder that when it comes to caravan sites, the planning permission and the site licence do need to be in sync with one another.**

Jurassic Park

And finally, as Monty Python might say, now for something completely different.

On 13 November, news broke that Herefordshire Council had granted retrospective planning permission for an animatronic dinosaur display at Ralph Court Gardens, a tourist attraction near Bromyard.

The Officer’s report for the application, which can be accessed here, confirms that the Council’s environmental health department had originally objected to the extension of the dinosaur exhibit following noise complaints that had been received after the first nine dinosaurs had taken up residence – stating that the roars, honks and screeches could clearly be heard outside of the park – and requesting an updated noise assessment for the site.

This was subsequently provided and retrospective permission for the dinosaurs was granted – subject to strict conditions governing operating hours and noise restrictions for the expanded exhibit.

I mention it for two reasons:

• Firstly, as I consider any Officer’s report containing the sentence “ the installation of the dinosaur animatronics is in itself considered development which requires planning permission” to be inherently newsworthy; and
• Secondly, because it is nice to see that, much like life itself, given the correct conditions and a suitably supportive noise report, animatronic dinosaurs will find a way.

And also because I am pretty sure that my youngest is going to insist that we conduct a site visit on the next visit to her grandparents…..

*I had originally planned something on the Planning & Infrastructure Bill, but I am feeling a little PIB’d out at the moment – so I have opted to go a little more niche this week.

**or you risk saying Bye Bye Bye to your authorisation to operate… Yes, that is an N’Sync joke. Yes, it is terrible. No, I am not even remotely sorry about it.