The joys of planning permission

Pasty

Member
Location
Devon
You normally only have 2 years to start work before planning expires. You must have been running that a bit close!
5 years as said above and it has to be a 'material start'. Digging a foundation trench is pretty much enough. We had a 'material start' proved here on a 20 year old plan because they had bought a pallet of bricks and put them in the barn.
 

Nearly

Member
Location
North of York
Had a neighbour storm onto site where Coal Authority / Thyssen were re-capping a mine shaft after I called them to say the concrete was cracked. (1996)
Neighbour was shouting that we were 'destroying our industrial heritage'.
If the digger driver hadn't grabbed the d**kh**d's shirt then he would have been down the hole. 175 metres!
Strangely enough neighbour went away a bit quietly after he stopped shaking.
 

Pasty

Member
Location
Devon
Had a neighbour storm onto site where Coal Authority / Thyssen were re-capping a mine shaft after I called them to say the concrete was cracked. (1996)
Neighbour was shouting that we were 'destroying our industrial heritage'.
If the digger driver hadn't grabbed the willy's shirt then he would have been down the hole. 175 metres!
Strangely enough neighbour went away a bit quietly after he stopped shaking.
Some sleepless nights followed...................................
 

Pasty

Member
Location
Devon
It's no secret that most district planning departments are in chaos at the moment. Either no staff or a few on 3 day weeks. They go in heavy on the easy cases and leave the big ones as there is no money to fight them.
 
Location
Suffolk
We received planning approval around 2 years ago for a new building. The planning went straight through without any objections. However, we have been busy with other things and the weathers been dreadful, so only started ground works earlier this week.

All week people have been parking up taking photos. To be honest we thought nothing of it and just carried on. People are always taking photos, as we are sheep farmers and cute little lambs running about in the fields, always attract photos at this time of year.

Anyway earlier today a car pulled up, a chap with a Hi Viz jacket turned up with a camera and a clipboard.

There was no hi or hello, just a I am from the council, who is in charge of this site?

So I came off the dumper and said hello.

He said you need to stop work, apparently what we were doing was illegal and that if we didn't stop a notice or something would be issued as he has had over 20 complaints.

So I pointed out we were only doing what we had planning permission for.

He said no you haven't. Apparently he had checked!

After 20 minutes of nearly losing my temper with him, I said wait a minute, got my phone out and showed him a screenshot of the approval decision notice which was displayed on the councils website!

His face dropped like a lead balloon.

I must admit I got such a lovely feeling in my stomach, when his face sank. Just thought for gods sake leave us alone to get on.

I know for sure if we had just started work without approval thinking sod it or tried retrospective planning there was not a chance in hell that it would have been approved, so it was £90 or so well spent on a planning application.

So a bit of a warning to others, sometimes its cheaper, less stressful and easier to do things right from the beginning.
Well the most important thing was that you didn't loose it. You played 'the game' which is the way it should be. Keep it that way! Anyway stop notices aren't the end they are just a reminder:rolleyes:
Glad to hear that you are cracking on.(y)
SS
 

Pasty

Member
Location
Devon
Also, nothing is 'illegal' until an enforcement order is served. You could build 20 houses and until they serve an order, you have not broken the law. There is no law that says you cannot build a house on a green field. If you do, it will probably come under planning law and enforcement at some point but you have not yet broken the law. I hear this all the time and it winds me up. It is not illegal to be in breach of planning regulations. It is illegal to be in breach of an enforcement order.
 
That's pretty fudgeed up.
I had a chap from the Council visit recently over a minor planning matter, and he said he was being made redundant with many of his colleagues, including his wife. In the end, I gave him tea and biscuits and he spent ages chatting about his future and wondering what it held .
I felt very sorry for him as it was obviously getting him down, and they had decided to buy a camper and hit the road once their money came through.
 

Smith31

Member
Got to the bottom of it today, a local pub landlord who I've known for years came to see me earlier. There's been some new houses built about a mile down the road, apparently some of the new residents didn't want the countryside spoiling and a petition was passed around to be signed at his pub during the last quiz night.

Bit late as we have had planning approval for 2 years!
 
Last edited:
We have two planning authorities round here, one is the District Council who are very good at covering their backsides and certainly very close knit as a department.
The other is the Broads Authority who are an unelected quango that live in cloud cuckoo land and are so disjointed it is laughable. The chair of the Broads Authority sacked an officer because she disagreed with his decision. A bit like Trump without the missiles really.
 

S J H

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Bedfordshire
He had checked using the farm address and the planning history logged against it. However the architect had used a land grid reference not the farm address, so the application did not show up against the farm address. So he came fully prepared to warn us that he would be issuing a notice if we didn't stop work.

He did apologise once I showed him the approval notice on my phone and said he should have double checked against the online map before he came to site threatening us with notices. His attitude changed altogether and was polite.

The aim of the post was to warn fellow farmers not to try and risk it without planning, as it only costs around £90, people complain more when they see work start.
I'd make sure that you follow it up and get a written apology. It could be very valuable to have a grovelling planning officer in the future.
 

phillipe

Member
Got to the bottom of it today, a local pub landlord who I've known for years came to see me earlier. There's been some new houses built about a mile down the road, apparently some of the new residents didn't want the countryside spoiling and a petition was passed around to be signed at his pub during the last quiz night.

Bit late as we have had planning approval for 2 years!
That just about says it all
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.1%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 67 35.3%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,294
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top