The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Buildings & planning => Topic started by: Leefle on March 19, 2020, 07:48:04 pm
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Hi I have nine acres of land, all grass I would like advice regarding living on the land to build a small holding.
If you have any tips would be most appreciated live in Devon
Regards
LEE
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Lots of good info on the Chapter7 website (http://tlio.org.uk/chapter7/).
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Hi Lee, congratualtions on buying your own plot of land. I'm sorry to put a downer on your excitment, but I'm sure you can imagine that creating a smallholding is really not as easy as buying land and then building on it. If you have brought agricultural land, then you will of paid the appropriate price for agricultural land. If you had brought land with planning permission for a caravan, house, barns the price would probably of been several (hundred) thousand more.
There are very firm rules about what can be placed on agricultural land, your really best off speaking to either a planning adviser, or possibly the council direct. They will be able to advise you if there would be any possibility of putting a caravan, barn, or even a property on the site.
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Completely understand I have emailed my local planning to arrange the next steps, thanks for the advice.
Hope you all keep well in this outbreak.
Can't get nothing in the shops, wish I started the small holding last year?
Regards
Lee
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Congrats on getting your own land! :)
My recommendation would be to look into permitted development rights for agricultural land and see if you are over the threshold in size.
https://www.gov.uk/planning-permissions-for-farms/permitted-development (https://www.gov.uk/planning-permissions-for-farms/permitted-development)
With large sizes, you can create fences, walls, entrances all under PD, but also more importantly, agricultural buildings without needed permission.
But I would also inform the local authority about what you are doing anyway - there's a specific form for that, but it's more of an keep them informed rather than request permission.
I would plan out your farm and what animals you will keep if any and talk to a planning consultant just to bounce it off them.
I'd then build your barns where you'd imagine a house could go in 10 years time.
This is a very simplified overview, but one strategy is to do a conversion after 10 years of it being a barn. You may never use it, but it's a nice to have and will help with increasing the value of your land.
10 years of having a large enough barn anyway lends itself as an incredibly useful space for farming or a workshop.
You could also buy some glamping tents and look into putting them on AirBnB if it's less than 28 days a year.
Good luck!
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Nine acres is too small to be classed as a farm which must be 5ha minimum (12.5 acres) Permitted development needs to be for a farm.
If you put up a basic steel portal barn it cannot be converted as a dwelling at a later date, it has to be a brick built barn for that.