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The applicant had previously applied for the barn on his holding of approx 10 hectares but was turned down, somewhat spuriously on the grounds of siting issues, i.e. being incongorous to the landscape. There was also the old planners safe gaurd of 'not reasonably necessary' thrown in just to add a bit of validity to their rejection.
Gaining development within the Green Belt is always considerably more tricky than elsewhere. Planning officers have it in their mind to protect such space from anyone and anythng. Of course, this is in reality a daft approach for the reason the countryside looks like it does is because it is used agriculturally and it is agriculture that has predominatly formed the landscape as we know it. If agriculture isn't allowed to prosper and is not supported, the landscape will end up just becoming a set of brown, scrub like fields, not to mention the irreversible problems arising from the loss of managed agricultural land.
The previous application I felt had been reasonable but planning officers said not. It was to my eyes then a case where we had to make sure every part of the permitted development rules were fully complied with, allowing no room for the planners to come up with spurious arguments against and reject on points they could tenuously use against.
The first thing to address was the siting. The original rejection had an opinion that it could be seen from a nearby lane, down the farm entrance (a narrow track in itself) despite that the whole land unit is surrounded by a good density of mature woodland. If you stopped your car in a specific position, craned your neck at an odd angle and closed one eye. yes, you might just catch one wee corner of the proposed barn.
So having looked on site for an alternative position but finding none suitable, we relocated the barn a few yards from its original siting and supported in writing and location plan, how it was now impossible to see the building from the lane.
My gut feeling is that on the original aplication, the planning officers never visited the site or if they did, misappropriated where they thought the barn was going to be.
The next point is one planning officers fall back on all to readily,, 'not reasonably necessary'.
There are times when they are right I won't deny but equally, it is often just a reason used without proper justification. The only way to tackle it is to make sure every cubic metre of a proposed building is justified with hard evidence and this involves a fair bit of maths and evidential proofing, so that if a planning officer wishes to reject, he has to call upon their own 'expert' to find fault. Of course, if you make your own substantiating evidence irrefutable then, unless the the planners and their cohorts 'fib', it makes it impossible for them to counter.
I don't believe it is possible to put in 100% gauranteed evidence supporting your claim, yet with careful scrutiny you can be close to 99%. Planners will frequently try to refute your claims or look for loopholes and don't forget, they get a lot of practice at it.
With this case we were able to make a good case for a building of approx 250sq.mtrs, allowing areas for feed, machinery and maintenance. The barn was of typical agricultural design. Time was spent on how the buildings apearance would be and plans were drawn up professionally.
Every sq.mtr plus the height of the building was justified using evidence of the amount of feed that would be required, how much space that would ues, machinery needed and the area needed for that, plus an allowance for access. The height was shown to be appropriate for the needs of what was being stored.
Every item was then justified as how it was required in connection with the land as you can't just say I need this, that and the other. Planners will soon work out from their ag. consultants if you are inconsistent. On this case, the planners queried why one sort of agricultural implement was being required and not another. We showed that it wasn't economically viable to have one thing but another was.
Having covered all of the issues to justify the barn and its design/siting, the farm has to be shown to be in business. With new farms this can be difficult. Planners like to look at 'business' as being long established with things coming and going. However, a new business is generally only in the stage where things are coming but nothing going yet. It can be awkward getting planning officers to recognise that a business exists when little seems to be going on. However, CPH numbers, livestock present and at least a good degree of activity all help. It is then about demonstrating the direction the new business is going and how this is not a pie in sky effort.
In this case, we had to put in extra substantiation to the planners as they were not convinced originally. By demonstrating things even like purchase invoices for equipment and livestock, we found the planners finally accepted our proof that a business existed.
Finally, with quite a bit of emailing between the planners and ourselves, the officer in charge and his ag. consultant eventually accepted and agreed the necessity and justification. Voila,,, Approval
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