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Hi everyone
This is a bit complicated but would appreciate your thoughts. I will try to explain the situation concisely but with enough detail to make sense.
We currently own a house with an acre of land that we use as a base for our Care Farm. We also own a further 11.5 acres of land about 3 miles away that we also use for the care farm. We have a range of animals located at both sites i.e. 3 rare breed pigs, 20 chickens, 4 dairy and 3 meat goats, 4 red poll cattle, horses (used for equine assisted therapy), ferrets, rabbits, guinea pigs and 30 sheep. We also have a large polytunnel and vegetable beds. Our main income comes from the care farm. In the last year we had approx. 50 people attending each week. The income from the animals is negligible as they are the vehicle to drive change in the people who attend.
We have found it really difficult operating over two sites and recently we have been offered the opportunity to purchase an old pig farm about 800 metres from our larger piece of land. The site covers about 5 acres and includes a range of buildings, a 3 acre paddock and 2 fully accessible holiday lets (converted from an old farrowing unit). The current owners converted the building 20 years ago. The other buildings on the site are now B2 use i.e. general industrial.
In 2009 the owners tried to get permission to change the use of one of the holiday lets to a permanent residence but were unsuccessful. In order for us to afford to buy the site we need to sell our house but obviously need somewhere to live. Therefore, we are going to try to get change of use on the holiday let plus change of use on another couple of the buildings as we also need a care farm support building and would also like to start a community café. My question finally.....is does anyone on here have any experience of this and equally any advice as to how best to proceed?
Our house is on the market and we were thinking about putting in for change of use prior to selling.....don't particularly want to be homeless and we need to think about the care farm clients. We have good local support for the care farm, a sound business plan and backing from the bank.
I have had one meeting with the planners who started talking about proving functional need etc. and have another one scheduled for this Friday.
Sorry for the long post.....just wanted to give enough information for people to understand the situation.
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