Between 2020 and 2022, Croydon Council served roughly one planning enforcement notice a year. In a single year after Executive Mayor Jason Perry took office in 2022, it served nineteen. The Planning Inspectorate has since decided fourteen enforcement appeals against Croydon in the year to March 2026. Compared to Brent or Barnet, those numbers are still modest, but compared to where Croydon was three years ago, they represent a near-twentyfold increase.
The council’s enforcement team is much more active than it used to be, less inclined to leave matters unresolved and increasingly willing to prosecute. Cases that would have sat untouched in 2020 are now being pursued.
What changed in 2022
When Jason Perry was elected as Croydon’s Executive Mayor in 2022, planning was one of the headline issues of his campaign. The council’s planning service had been hit hard by years of funding reductions, the council’s wider financial problems and national staffing shortages. The backlog of undetermined applications had become a political problem in itself.
Perry’s response was a “major transformation programme” focused on clearing the backlog and rebuilding enforcement capacity. The council ran eight clearance weeks in his first year to drive down the application backlog, and the enforcement service was reorganised around what the Mayor’s office describes as “intelligence-led, zero-tolerance action”. In a statement published in 2025, Perry said Croydon “will not return to the lax enforcement and declining standards of the past”.
Prosecution is now a real risk
The council has also become more willing to take cases through to prosecution where notices are ignored or conditions are breached. In March 2026, Croydon secured convictions in two separate cases against developers who had failed to comply with planning conditions. In the most prominent of these, at Grace Heights, 43 Woodcote Valley Road in Purley, the developer had been granted permission to build a block of flats but failed to deliver the landscaping and bin-store works required by the consent. The council served a Breach of Condition Notice; when the developer ignored it, the council pursued prosecution. The defendant was convicted in his absence at Croydon Magistrates’ Court.
The Grace Heights case is interesting because it relates to what sometimes might be considered a relatively minor condition — landscaping and refuse storage — rather than the more obviously serious breaches that traditionally trigger enforcement action.
What gets enforced against in Croydon
Croydon is a large and varied borough, running from the dense urban core of Croydon town centre and West Croydon through the Victorian and Edwardian streets of Thornton Heath, South Norwood and Selhurst, out to the leafier suburbs of Purley, Sanderstead, Coulsdon and Shirley, and the green-belt fringes around Kenley and Old Coulsdon. Each part of the borough generates its own enforcement profile.
Unauthorised HMO conversions are a particular focus. A borough-wide Article 4 direction has been in force since January 2020, removing the permitted development right to convert family houses (use class C3) into small HMOs (use class C4) without planning permission. The council introduced the direction in response to the loss of more than 900 family homes to HMO conversion over the previous decade. The direction applies across the whole borough, not just to designated areas, which makes Croydon stricter than many neighbouring authorities. Unlawful conversions remain a significant proportion of the enforcement caseload, particularly in the inner-borough wards around West Croydon, Selhurst and Thornton Heath.
Householder breaches make up most of the rest. Rear and side extensions built beyond permitted development limits, larger-than-approved roof and dormer extensions, outbuildings being used as separate dwellings, and works carried out in conservation areas without the necessary consents are all regular sources of enforcement action. Croydon has further Article 4 directions covering the Chatsworth Road, Waldrons and Kenley Aerodrome conservation areas, which remove permitted development rights for specific types of work in those areas. Householders who assume they are operating under standard permitted development rules can find themselves caught out, particularly in the older conservation streets around Croham, South Croydon and Norwood.
Breaches of planning conditions on larger developments — landscaping not delivered, bin and refuse stores not built, materials not submitted for approval — are the newest focus area following the Grace Heights prosecution and similar cases.
How enforcement cases usually start
As with most councils, Croydon’s officers do not go looking for breaches. The team responds to complaints rather than carrying out routine monitoring of development across the borough. Most investigations begin with a neighbour ringing up to report what looks like unauthorised work — a roof extension that has appeared without warning, an outbuilding that seems to be being used as a separate dwelling, a house that suddenly has too many bins outside it.
The first contact from the council is usually not an enforcement notice but an informal letter asking for information, or in some cases a Planning Contravention Notice. A PCN is a formal legal document that requires you to provide specific information within a set period — usually 21 days — and a failure to respond honestly and in full is itself an offence. The answers you give to a PCN will often determine whether further enforcement action follows, so the response needs care.
If the council concludes that a breach has occurred and that it is expedient to act, the next step is usually a formal enforcement notice. The notice will set out the alleged breach, the steps required to remedy it, and a compliance deadline. From the moment the notice is issued, you have a strictly limited window to appeal — usually 28 days — and missing that deadline removes the right of appeal entirely.
In our experience, the Croydon team now moves reasonably quickly once it has decided a breach exists, and there is somewhat less appetite than there used to be for prolonged informal negotiation before formal action is taken. That is consistent with the Mayor’s stated approach of “no longer just issuing warnings”. Where there is a sensible route to resolving a case without formal enforcement — a retrospective application, an amendment to bring development within permitted development rules, a certificate of lawfulness for older works — the team will generally consider it, but the runway for those conversations is shorter than it was.
Recent Croydon cases
Even where enforcement action has been taken, or a refusal has been issued, there is almost always more than one route forward. Two recent cases give a sense of how this works in practice.
At 96 Mount Park Avenue in South Croydon, our client had planning permission for a single-storey side and rear extension to a depth of three and a half metres, but during construction the extension was built to just over six metres. We submitted a retrospective planning application to regularise what had been built, which the council refused on the basis that the extension was too large for its surroundings. We appealed. The inspector accepted that the extension caused no harm to neighbouring properties in terms of outlook, light or privacy, but agreed with the council that the overall scale was excessive. Rather than accept demolition, we worked with the client to revise the design, trimming back a small part of the extension to reduce its visual bulk without significantly affecting the internal space. The revised scheme was submitted and planning permission was granted. The client kept the vast majority of what had been built.
At 211 Gloucester Road in Croydon, our client had converted an outbuilding into two separate flats many years earlier and had been renting them out continuously since. When he came to remortgage the property, his lender required confirmation that the flats were lawful. We submitted a certificate of lawfulness application supported by forty-seven separate pieces of evidence — tenancy agreements, correspondence, rent records — establishing continuous use as separate dwellings over the relevant period. The certificate was granted. The client was able to refinance, and what had been an informal arrangement became two fully lawful units in his portfolio.
The point both cases illustrate is that even when the council has issued a refusal, an enforcement notice, or has signalled that something is unlawful, the right strategy depends on the detail. The Mount Park Avenue client kept most of his extension despite losing at appeal. The Gloucester Road client legitimised long-running unauthorised flats without ever facing enforcement action.
What to do if you have received a notice or letter
The fact that Croydon’s enforcement service is more active does not mean every notice it serves is sound. Nationally, around one in five enforcement notices is quashed or granted permission on appeal, and Croydon’s notices are not immune to the same issues. Notices can be defective in their drafting, allege a breach that has not actually occurred as a matter of fact, require steps that go beyond what is necessary to remedy the alleged breach, or relate to development that is immune from enforcement under the four-year or ten-year rules.
Three things to do straight away.
Act quickly. The appeal deadline is usually 28 days from the date of issue, and once it expires the right of appeal is gone permanently. Even at earlier stages — a PCN, an informal letter — there are timetables that matter and decisions that get harder the longer they are left.
Never ignore an enforcement notice. It will not go away. Once the compliance period expires, failure to comply is a criminal offence under section 179 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. In Croydon, prosecution is increasingly likely where notices are ignored, as the Grace Heights case demonstrates.
Take professional advice early. Enforcement is the most technical and unforgiving corner of the planning system. The procedural deadlines are tight, the legal tests for each ground of appeal are particular, and the strategic choices have lasting consequences. The earlier we are involved, the more options remain on the table.
How we can help
We act on enforcement cases across Croydon, including unauthorised HMO conversions affected by the borough-wide Article 4 direction, householder extensions exceeding permitted development limits, breaches of planning conditions on larger developments, and works carried out in the borough’s conservation areas. We know how the Croydon team operates, we know the policy framework, and we know what works against the council’s current approach. If you have received any form of enforcement correspondence from Croydon, contact us as early as possible. We will review your notice or correspondence for free, give you an honest assessment of your options, and quote a fixed fee for whatever route makes sense.
