Our application for the conversion of an agricultural stone barn to a dwelling has been approved by Rutland City Council in spite of the fact that a previous application for full planning permission had detailed the building as having been used for domestic storage and as a “party room”.
In order to qualify for the permitted development right, a building’s use must have been solely agricultural. The crucial question, however, is whether such subsequent non-agricultural use in fact represents a material change in the use of the building, or whether it was of no real significance in planning terms, so as to have been de minimis.
It cannot be assumed that any other use of an agricultural or former agricultural building for some non-agricultural purpose would automatically represent a material change of use.
Support for this approach to the issue discussed above is provided by an appeal decision at Great Totham, Essex (Maldon DC) in July 2018 [3198348]. The appeal building was part of a long standing and larger farm complex which was subdivided in 1988. The LPA suggested that there had been no agricultural activity since 1988 and that the building had instead been used for both commercial and domestic activities. The appellant himself had never operated an agricultural trade or business from the appeal building and it was no longer part of an established agricultural unit. However, this did not mean it had moved away from its historic and lawful agricultural use, and the Inspector noted that planning permission to use the building for purposes unrelated to agriculture had never been granted. On the balance of probability, he therefore found that the building was probably last in an active agricultural use as part of an agricultural unit in 1988.
At points between 1988 and 2004 the appellant operated a number of heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) from the yard as part of an agricultural haulage business. There was nothing to suggest the material being transported derived from an agricultural unit operated by the appellant. However, the HGV licence only permitted the parking of HGV vehicles in the yard. The HGV vehicles were too large to be parked within the appeal building. There was nothing before the Inspector to suggest the barn formed part of this enterprise. The Inspector therefore concluded that the lawful agricultural use, which had not been active since 1988, would have endured even if the building had been used occasionally to support the unlawful HGV business (which seemed unlikely).
The appeal building itself had been intermittently used to store a tractor and other paraphernalia left over from the historic agricultural use, such as apple crates. The barn had also, at points, been used to kennel dogs, to park vehicles and as a workshop. The barn was described as being used for the storage of the owner’s vehicles and farm equipment, but it was unclear what farm the equipment related to. The storage and workshop use appeared to be domestic in nature given the items on show.
It was unclear whether the non-agricultural uses were for unbroken periods of time, more than intermittent and consistently more than low key. As such, the recorded use of the appeal building as a store and workshop was unlikely to be sufficient evidence to demonstrate that a material change of use of the barn from agriculture to some other use had occurred.
Thus the historic and long standing use as an agricultural building had endured. This suggested that the barn had had a lawful dormant agricultural use since 1988. The LPA had never previously asserted that a material change of use from agriculture to some other use had occurred. The Inspector observed that the evidence before him was incomplete and finely balanced but, on the balance of probability, he found that the appeal building, whilst not in use on the 20 March 2013, was last lawfully used in 1988 and this was solely for agriculture in connection with an established agricultural unit. In this respect, the permitted development rights in Class Q of the GPDO applied to the appeal building. The Inspector therefore found that the proposal was permitted development and concluded that the appeal should be allowed, and approval granted.
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