Important New Guidance on the Meaning of “Curtilage”

24 April, 2020

In Hampshire County Council v Secretary of State for the Environment [2019] EWHC 959 (Admin), the High Court (Holgate J) has given important new guidance on the meaning of curtilage. 

Important New Guidance on the Meaning of “Curtilage”

24 April, 2020

In Hampshire County Council v Secretary of State for the Environment [2019] EWHC 959 (Admin), the High Court (Holgate J) has given important new guidance on the meaning of curtilage. 

In Hampshire County Council v Secretary of State for the Environment [2019] EWHC 959 (Admin), the High Court (Holgate J) has given important new guidance on the meaning of curtilage. The issue arose in the context of an application under the Commons Act 2006 but the decision is of wider significance. The Court held that the guidance in Calderdale (1982) should be confined to listed building cases and that otherwise the approach in Methuen-Campbell (1979) and Dyer (1989) should be adopted. He gave the landowner permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal because he considered there was a compelling public interest in the Court of Appeal being able to review the case law on curtilage. Ned Westaway appeared for the Secretary of State, Douglas Edwards KC and George Mackenzie for the landowner, Blackbushe Airport Ltd, and Philip Petchey for the Open Spaces Society.