A woman who has run a car park from her property near Bristol Airport for more than 10 years has been told she has been in breach of an enforcement notice the whole time.

Yew Tree Paddocks on Downside Road is one of the many car parks set up by locals in Lulsgate Bottom, the village next to the major international airport. But after the woman running it applied to North Somerset Council to regularise the car park, she was told that it had not been lawful to run one there since 2006.

The council has been running a major crackdown on unauthorised airport car parks in recent years. It has issued 36 enforcement notices since 2024 and carried out more than 1,000 site visits last year alone.

The owner of Yew Tree Paddocks applied for a certificate of lawfulness — which would make the car park exempt from enforcement action — in May. She said that it should qualify since it had been in established use for more than ten years.

But North Somerset Council said that the site was already subject to enforcement action. The council issued an enforcement notice against a car park operating there in 2006, which it said had never expired and was still in force.

The application acknowledged the previous enforcement action, but called it “historic” and insisted the current car park was a new operation. It said “The current airport parking began on a relatively modest scale from approximately 2014 onwards.

“Early operations commonly involved customers arriving through the driveway before vehicles were subsequently moved into available field areas, including the side field. […] Some customers walked to Bristol Airport due to the close proximity of the site.”

The nearly 100-page-long application included testimonials from people who have used the “convenient” car park over the last 12 years. One person said they had used it multiple times a year since 2014 or 2015 and recommended it to friends and family.

They added: “I have consistently returned to use this parking due to its convenience and reliability, and I have always understood the land to be operating as an airport parking facility.”

Another said: “Each time I travel through Bristol Airport, I leave my vehicle at the property and collect it again when I return. […] From my own experience, it has always been a reliable place to park and something I have come to rely on as part of my normal routine when travelling between Ireland and the UK.”

Rejecting the application, North Somerset Council said: “The local planning authority is satisfied that the use claimed is in breach of an extant enforcement notice. As the use cannot be lawful whilst the enforcement notice remains in force, the application fails to satisfy the requirements of section 191 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

“The information is sufficiently precise and unambiguous, and accordingly the application is refused. A certificate of lawfulness should not be granted.”