Red line planning boundary

samm77

I'm hoping someone might be able to help me with a planning issue. We are trying to buy some land that has outline planning permission. The red line planning boundary encompasses the whole site. At the final stage the landowner has said that he wants to retain approximately 20% of the site. Ignoring the moral or ethical rights or wrongs about him doing this, I am wondering what impact this would have on converting the outline planning permission to full planning permission if we ended up not owning the whole outline red line boundary? The area he wants to keep is along the access lane and thus restricts the location of potential access onto the site. The best outcome for us would be that the original outline permission would be invalid if we didn't own the entire red line boundary.

System

You can't invalidate a previously granted permission with a change in ownership.
If the boundary is different on the detailed application (and smaller) it is likely to have no consequence if it is within the area granted outline permission.
Further, you don't have to own land to apply for planning permission on it, so legal ownerships aren't a consideration for planning (you just have to identify owners so they can be notified)

AdrianC

He wants to retain the bit of land around the access...? You might like to Google "ransom strip"

patman99

I would only go ahead if there was enough width beside the access lane to put a short run of drive in to bypass the 'ransom strip'. I know of someone who has got this option open to him if the people who own the access road ever decide to start charging him for using it.

samm77

We would still retain access to the site albeit located where he wants rather than where we want ( which ideally would be through the area he wants to keep). So not quite ransom.

eddddy

Is the planning consent for a house/dwelling?

Reducing the plot size by 20% might result in a breach of some of the local planning authority guidelines. For example:

- Provision of Private Garden
- Provision of off-street parking
- Provision of car turning space

Guidelines vary from authority to authority - and also depending on the type of area (rural, urban etc)

samm77

To be honest we are only interested in the site if we can get it as advertised - the entire red line boundary. But in order to get that he would have to back down from what he has now said. I was hoping to find a legal or planning reason why you need to sell a site with outline PP in its entirety rather than with a section taken out of it. That way I could go back to him and say it's a legal or planning imperative that we get the whole site which would kind of give him an opportunity to change his mind without losing face.

samm77

Eddddy, it's a rural site and would still be over 0.5 acre so unfortunately I don't think that would apply.

daveyjp

Outline gives approval for development in principle, but some issues such as access may have been fully approved as part of this process.

If so you will probably need a reserved matters application to consider the other details.

If your application site differs from the outline you may well need a new full application for the land you intend developing, especially if access is already approved and you are changing it.

Selling part of a site with outline is not unusual. Developers do it all the time. Get outline for a large site, then hive of plots to end users who apply for reserved matters.

AdrianC

I wouldn't worry about justifications - just tell him you aren't interested in the partial site, so sell you 100% or 0% is his choice, not 80%

marksoton

I'd be asking myself one question and one question only. Why he's doing it.

And then i'd be insistent it's either 100% or all bets are off.