planning issue needs help!

WillowCat

hjbatchelor wrote: »

Oh

I guess i will not be able to do the mobile home idea then.

I just want to live on my land and keep a few animals.

Is there no way i can do this?

Harry.

I wish you could. I wish I could. I think there's probably thousands who would love to do it. In France it would be easy to pick up a few acres with permission to put a mobile home on it, but in the UK our planning laws are really tight, and that's why the price of agricultural land is so much less than building land.

A modest home on a few acres of land is way out of reach of all but the richest of people.

planning_officer

RLH33 wrote: »

Planning Officer - I usually agree completely with your sound advice but are you sure about the 10 year rule for residential? I thought that the rule had changed, following a high court case or something, where to prove residential use it was four years rather than the 10 years for all other changes of use. This means that for residential alone it is four years not only for operational development but also the use. This is certainly the way we have been advising in my LA.

Sorry for late reply! We take the literal interpretation of the legislation I copied above - as it says the change of use 'of a building' to residential is 4 years, that (in my opinion) means that the change of use of land to residential is 10 years. For example, if someone submits an application for a lawful development certificate for an existing use relating to the use of some land as part of their garden, we assess it for the 10 years prior to the date of the application, not 4. If it is a building, like someone unlawfully living in a barn, then it would be 4 years, as it's the change of use of a building rather than of land. I'm not aware of any high court case changing anything, but the legislation certainly hasn't changed - although I'm open to persuasion!