Charge for permitted development?

[solar bud]

This is the bit that bothers me:-

http://www.woodlands.co.uk/buying-a-wood/planning-and-woodlands.php

[quote]A condition of Permitted Development rights for forestry is that you must give advance notice to the local planning authority of what you intend to do. This system is called the Prior Notification Procedure (or the Determination Procedure) and involves filling in a simple form and providing a map and drawing. The planners then have 28 days in which to notify you that your development should not begin without their prior approval of the siting, design and external appearance. At this point they could also reject the proposal as not “reasonably necessary” for the purposes of forestry.

[/quote]

[wrekin]

solar bud: as you've quoted from the advice on woodlands.co.uk, the council can object on the grounds that the building (or roadway) isn't necessary for the purposes of forestry (nothing else is relevant in deciding this.) If you build it without going through the prior notification procedure, they can say you need to apply for full retrospective planning permission if they do find out. Full planning permission gives a lot more scope for parish councils, bent councillors etc to try to find objections to things they don't want you to do on your land.

As far as breaking the law, that point is when you fail to comply with an enforcement notice from the council saying you've done something without planning permission and must reinstate things within a time limt they set. (Applying for retrospective permission stops the clock on that until you win or exhaust the appeals process.) If you ignore an enforcement notice, you've broken the law and they can take you to court and run up legal fees you have to pay etc.

http://www.fieldtofarm.com/forum/ is an invaluable source of info about all this, from an agricultural rather than forestry point of view. If you just join the forum, you can read all the hidden bits. You only need to pay or buy the book to post.

[Emma S]

Prior notification can be a right pain though. We got the OK for a farm office and a car parking area under notification, but a toilet and yurt to provide a space to run our DEFRA Higher Level Stewardship school access was not deemed 'agricultural' despite the head of SE Natural England telling them that HLS is an agri-environmental scheme with access and conservation as it's 2 focus points. It was only going to be used for school access too, but the estate consultant is the guy who makes the decisions, so it is all up to the opinions of one person at the end of the day.

[wrekin]

Emma S: did you already have some kind of toilet? Presumably the office is too small for groups of people to have lunch in the rain?

Some of the Field to Farm people are trying to use the Health and Safety at Work Act and the Welfare at Work Act to argue that things like toilets, shelter etc are needed for workers to comply with the legislation. ie the work is allowed for agricultural purposes, therefore the facilities to enable the work are too. They're people trying to work full time on their farming land though, so it's easier for them to argue that. Mind you, if someone regularly had lots of forestry volunteers, including school-age ones, they'd surely need them too. Volunteers and owners count as workers for these purposes, as I understand it.

[Emma S]

No, there was no toilet on the farm at all, only inside the farmhouse, and we now have more people doing farm work. We have actually built a toilet anyway and its sitting in the woods. Its a composting unit with a sealed above ground tank, and is up on bricks as its a 'prefab' type construction, so technically a temporary building.

And, no, the office isnt even built yet (its going to be built into the section of a semi derelect barn) so there is nowhere dry and safe for children to eat their lunch or do activities if it is raining. We have WWOOFers too, but its not always convenient for them to walk about 1/2 mile back to their accommodation to use the loo.

I have been looking on F2F, and was thinking of the Health and Safety at work act if it was necesary to argue our case. We have horribly nosy and objectionable (objecting) neighbours who live in the ex farm cottages on the farm!

I dont actually live on the farm either, I live 5 miles away, so technically I dont have access to a toilet or shelter too.

[Exeldama]

Im sure if its only a genuine woodland shelter and you arnt putting in a staircase or a lading strip its purely formalising the situation..which im sure you have done already. You wrote a letter with a plan ages ago.. i know you did, i did and kept a copy.

[Binz]

"It's tempting just to get on with it and send them their £61 and hope they approve."

we started, then applied for permitted dev. Initially rejected as they said we hadn't proved we were managing the woodland as forestry. so sent off photos of coppicing and a management plan and reapplied and was rejected as they said it was not 'reasonably necessary' to have a shelter. They said if we wanted to keep it we would have to apply for full planning permission and that it would be unlikely to be granted. In hindsight it may have been better to just build it as a temporary structure as apparently if it is deemed temporay you dont need to involve the council at all. Thought about appealing the decision but couldn't be rsed. We've now taken down what we started building and all in all it was a pain in the butt and not worth the hassle. Shelter is less needed now we have a 4x4 campervan, but it would be nice to have something set up so may put up a teepee at some point.

[solar bud]

What defines whether a structure is temporary or permanent?

[RichardKing]

At my previous house I was permitted to build a shed as a "temporary structure" on the basis that it was not fixed to the ground & was capable of being dismantled in one day.

[Exeldama]

Above is spot on... just a hought my friend has a lovely canvas tent often seen at re-enactments. It goes up in a couple of mintues can sleep 6 easily and is sort of round and canvassy... it would sit in a wood really well.