farmers can build whereever they like on greenbelt

meercatsunited

did you know that a farmer is allowed to create private housing from his perfectly good house and buildings and then build himself a nice new house and farm buildings anywhere in his greenbelt fields.

This is happening in my area, he will make £000 000's, nice loophole.

Another is in the process of building 2 huge detached houses for resale in greenbelt overlooking open fields. £500k each.

there is a shortage of building land in my area so the rest of us have to pay over the odds, we are never allowed to build on greenbelt land.

zcrat41

Actually they're not allowed.

If they have been allowed they will have had to pass a very stringent planning application. Farmers can normally only get extra houses for themselves on green belt land if they have enough animals to justify it or land with grain buildings and need staff living on site.

And if they do actually have the above (and I know some errant few do not and give us majority of bad farmers a bad name) then its not so bad. They will normally only get planning for a very small house and for that they will be looking after those animals for very long days, unsociable hours and for what is normally very low pay. And there is a need to have someone on site 24/7 - my farm has a large number of free range hens. If the fans go down in the summer for example, we have about 30 mins before we could have thousands of dead hens on our hands. Generator I hear you shout - well this happened last year and our generator and our back up generator failed to kick in. Good job we live on site as we were able to get a hire generator very very quickly.

Peanuckle

If only it was that easy, it took my landlord 5 years and a legal fight to get permission to build a replacement house for his daughter and her family when their farm cottage burnt down

zcrat41

Well said peanuckle.

So many people think farmers are loaded and really lucky!

They often work long hours for low pay.

Apart from the odd few that got development money but they're few and far between.

Not that I'm jealous or anything!

meercatsunited

well the farmer I spoke of actually told us what he was doing, how and why, he even said there is nothing wrong with the current farm buildings and he is doing it to make money. The reason he stold us is because the planning application noticed had to be placed outside his property and yes he did get permission.
and this one is loaded, married into it you see and yes he does work long hours but then dont you.

on the other farm the 2 very large detached I mentioned are fabulous and are for sale, he may have struggled with the application, it may have taken a long time I dont know but he got permission.

liam8282

Did you raise your objections when he submitted the application?

leveller2911

It seems it depends on what area you live in.In my area I know of two farmers who have built new houses on their farms for their children and none of them work on the farms for any length of time.I believe they are down as partners/directors or employees but spend next to no time working on the Farms.

Just my opinion but I'm sure your average hill farmer has a real struggle to make a living but around here I can say from personal experience they have all done very well.

All bar none have 5-6 bedroom farmhouses, they receive lovelly big cheques from the tax payers through farm subsidies whilst at the same time telling us all that they are "custodians of the countryside" when at the same time they don't want Joe Public walking on their land.
Then they get compensation from the taxpayers when foot n mouth ,TB etc strikes .Any other private business would need to have insurance to cover losses but Farmers receive taxpayers money/compensation.
This week alone I've counted 10 tractors pulling trailers with no lights or number plates and also how many people would get away with leaving the roads covered in mud during the Winter?.We regularly see accidents caused around field gateways from the mud left by farmers and in 42 years I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen a farmer clear the mud off the roads...........

Yep its a tough life being a Farmer (Hill farmers exempt from critisism)........

ChiefGrasscutter

Can the OP post the link to the online planning application page please........so we can all see the details.
All planning apps are now put online. There should be a link via the local council website to the planning portal - then you have to search for the property which I agree can be difficult in some circumstances

Then we can look at the application, the reasoning, and the planning report - assuming it went to full committee and was not dealt with in the office.

The system is skewed in that for any application if the council throws out the application then the applicant can appeal to the planning inspectorate. If the application is approved then there is no appeals proceedure for the objectors.

Edit: Green belt rules on what can and cannot be done are even more complex.

Cyril

I do agree that to the layman it seems farmers can and do get agreements for developments no other would get.

I am in a semi rural area and can think of two instances where farmers have hived off a couple of acres and as soon as permission for housing is granted its on the open market.

Another example is a farmer who had a few acres, some hens and got permission for a 7 bed house yet a girl who lives in her mobile home with her young family is not allowed to have a small 2 bed cottage ??? And they actually do work on the land, they have a smallholding and she produces horses.

The trouble is that decisions don't seem consistent.

molerat

Of course the decisions are consistent, smallholders will not have any pals on the planning committee whereas the big farmers will. See, consistent.

leveller2911

molerat wrote: »

Of course the decisions are consistent, smallholders will not have any pals on the planning committee whereas the big farmers will. See, consistent.

Your as cynical as me, mind you up until a couple of years ago the Chairman of the local Planning Committee was local farmer and his family were renowned for putting in retrospective planning applications of which all were granted.