means any word, letter, model, sign, placard, board, notice, device or representation, employed wholly or in part for the purposes of advertisement, announcement or direction and without prejudice to the foregoing provision includes any hoarding or similar structure used or adapted for use for the display of advertisements and references to the display of advertisements shall be construed accordingly;

means the Town and Country Planning Advisory Committee appointed under the provisions of section 4;

includes horticulture, fruit farming, the growing of crops of all descriptions, dairy farming, bee keeping, poultry keeping and breeding and the breeding and keeping of livestock;

includes any house, hut, shed or roofed enclosure, whether used for the purpose of a human habitation or otherwise and also any wall, fence, platform, septic tank, staging, gate, post, pillar, paling, frame, hoarding, slip, dock, wharf, pier, jetty, landing stage or bridge or any structure or erection connected with the foregoing;

means the High Court;

in relation to any land means any building operations or rebuilding operations, including the making of an alteration, addition or structural repair to any building, the formation, laying out or material widening of a street or a means of vehicular access thereto, and any use of the land or any building, either wholly or in part, which is materially different from the purpose for which the land or building was last being used, provided that the following operations or uses of land shall not be deemed to involve development of land, that is to say—

• (a)the carrying out of works for the repair, improvement or other alteration of any building, being works which affect only the interior of the building;
• (b)the use (not involving building or rebuilding operations other than those specified in paragraph (a)) of land or of any building within the curtilage of a dwelling house for any purpose incidental to the enjoyment of the dwelling house as such;
• (c)the use (not involving building or rebuilding operations other than those specified in paragraph (a)) of land for the purposes of agriculture or forestry, and the use for any of those purposes of any building occupied together with land so used;

means the Director of Town and Country Planning for the time being appointed under the provisions of section 3;

and existing work means respectively a building or work erected, constructed or carried out before the material date; and include also a building or work—

• (a)erected, constructed or carried out in pursuance of a contract made before the material date; or
• (b)begun before, but completed after, that date, provided that—
  • (i)a building erected or constructed in substitution for a previous building in accordance with the provisions of the scheme relating to substituted buildings shall be deemed to be an existing building; and
  • (ii)a building shall not cease to be, or deemed to be an existing building by reason of its alteration or extension in accordance with the provision of the scheme relating to the alteration or extension of existing buildings, and any such alteration or extension shall itself be deemed to be part of the existing building;

means, in relation to any building or land, a use of that building or land for any purpose of the same or a similar character to that for which it was last used before the material date, or, in the case of a newly erected building which has not been used before that date, a use for any purpose for which it was designed, provided that—

• (a)
  • (i)such land or building is used continuously only for a purpose for which it was used on the material date;
  • (ii)such land or building is used only for a purpose for which it was used on the material date and such use has not thereafter been discontinued for any period of more than 12 months; or
  • (iii)such land or building is, within 12 months after the material date, used only for a purpose for which it was last used prior to the material date and such use has not thereafter been discontinued for any period of more than 12 months;
• (b)where at the material date a person who was using any land for the purpose of mining, quarrying, the digging of clay, gravel or sand or the deposit of waste materials or refuse or any other purpose of a similar nature, was entitled also to use neighbouring land for any such purpose, the user under that title of that neighbouring land for any such purpose, whether before or after the material date, shall be deemed to be an existing use;

includes a residential building, church, warehouse, office, hospital, counting-house, shop, factory and school or any other building in which persons reside or are employed;

means—

• (a)a town council constituted under the provisions of the Local Government Act 1972;
• (b)in respect of land outside the boundaries of any town, the local authority of a rural sanitary district constituted under the provisions of the Public Health Act 1935;

means, in relation to any provision contained in a scheme, the date of the order constituting the town planning area;

means the person in occupation of the holding or building in respect of which the word is used, or having the charge, management or control thereof either on his or her own account or as agent of another person, but does not include a lodger;

in relation to any land, means a person, other than a mortgagee not in possession, who is for the time being entitled to dispose of the fee simple of the land, whether in possession or in reversion, and includes also a person holding or entitled to the rents and profits of the land under a lease or agreement;

means a scheme under this Act, and, save as otherwise expressly provided in this Act, includes a substituted scheme and a scheme modifying or altering an existing scheme;

in relation to a building includes the area of any offices, out-buildings, yard, court or garden occupied or intended to be occupied therewith;

includes any road, square, footway or passage, whether a thoroughfare or not, over which the public has a right of way and also the way over any public bridge, and also includes any road, footway or passage, open court or open alley, used or intended to be used as a means of access to 2 or more houses, whether the public has a right of way thereover or not and all channels, drains and ditches at the side of any street shall be deemed to be part of such street; and

means the division of a parcel of land for sale, conveyance, transfer, lease, sublease, mortgage, agreement, partition or other dealing or by procuring the issue of a separate instrument of title under the provisions of the Land Transfer Act 1971 in respect of any portion of land or by parting with the possession of any part thereof, or by depositing a plan of subdivision with the Registrar of Titles under the provisions of the last mentioned Act.