The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Introduce yourself => Topic started by: abbeyroaduk on April 22, 2011, 06:28:13 pm
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Can anyone tell me the law on siting a caravan upon private land. I have trawled the net searching for details but keep getting conflicting information. Upon my retirement I recently purchased an 11 acre smallholding including a 1.5 acre lake in Gwynned North Wales, my idea was to get the land back into some usable form as its covered with couch grass, plant a few fruit trees and vegetables and maybe keep a few chickens. And although i don't know what fish are in the lake i thought i would have a go at fishing. However i have come up against a brick wall with the council as i put a static caravan on the site without permission and have been told to remove it. Has anyone else had this problem and if so how did you resolve it. I really need to know what are my rights, as all i am getting from the council (Like a scene from Little Brittain) is the computer says NO!.
Please help :farmer:
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This is an old one , simply no statics without permission and then they will set a time on them being there, ie my mate got two years permission while they built a house. A mobile one is dodgy, how big is mobile! Best to just ask what you can put on there and keep in their good books.
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Technically, yes, you need planning permission and they'll only grant it for a limited number of years...
But...
When we bought this place the previous owners had one here - they took it away and we replaced it with a newer one.
The council tried to tell us we needed planning permission but I was able to provide them with photographs going back twenty or thirty years showing a caravan in situ and they relented, agreeing to turn a blind eye to it, but any new siting would need planning.
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You might find something useful here : http://www.tlio.org.uk/chapter7/planningadvice (http://www.tlio.org.uk/chapter7/planningadvice)
Good folk, the Chapter 7 folk, and tremendously knowledgeable
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I know a few people who have come up against this problem ....but, if you can find/afford a good agent to help you, some people I know have been successful in keeping their caravan for 3 years, and got planning for a house on the land too. I think this is the best you will get, temp permission. Suppose they have this rule, otherwise, whats to stop everyone with some land sticking a static van on it?
I know someone who has managed to put up a log cabin, for three years, with the intention of building a house there eventually.
I also think you could fight them with the fact that you need to live on the land to tend your livestock, but probably you would have to prove they needed overnight looking after.
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Is'nt there a rule that you need to make the larger percentage of your income from the livestock to be able to build a house on the land? I have vague memories of years ago when we were looking.
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Offer to be ag tie restricted, it might make them relent. I knew some folk in Beds who lived in a portakabin. They convinced the autocrats by running their lakes as a day ticket fishery arguing it brought money and employment to the area.
Its so sad when good intentioned folk like yourself meet these out of date regulations, I can get very fruity about officials but will restrict my writing to "good luck"!
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What works where we used to live was a good under the counter bonus for the planning officials. Worked wonders for our neighbour.
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John, I replied to your im.
Hilarys mama! How to grease the oily wheels? Shame upon you lass! :farmer:
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What works where we used to live was a good under the counter bonus for the planning officials. Worked wonders for our neighbour.
My building control officer when I built my own house wouldn't even accept a cup of tea nor an invite to the house warming party ::)
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It wasnt us. it happened twice, once when a field we kept our horses on was suddenly allowed planning (and I got that info from the participating officer's under dog) and when our neighbour decided to extend his house. He was refused planning but went ahead anyway. We objected. The planning office said no problem he would be forced to return it to original (that was not our concern it was a fire hazard with less than a metre between his peaked roof and ours. He even got away with safety regs. Finally a lovely rotweiller lady got onto it, and a lot of changes were made which improved OUR safety. But he knew the right people and boasted to us that he would get away with it because he knew who had greasy palms (he was an ex planning dept. worker) and he did, and got away with far more than anyone else would have done.
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Mmm! No surprises there, we have the same with Masons here. Not the stone variety either! :wave:
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Mmm! No surprises there, we have the same with Masons here. Not the stone variety either! :wave:
Was that a funny handshake there?! ;)
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Nay lass not me! I would shoot the bluddy lot of them! :farmer:
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Its a funny old world, we have a caravan on our land but it was hard work, within days we had a call from the planning officer stating he had recieved a number of complaints from local villagers (the same ones who we had banned from using our land for their horsey activities, presumably) we pointed out it was a tourer not a static, we got them off our backs eventually but not before a load of acrimony had developed.
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So does that mean they allow a tourer to be left, even if it is a self sufficient one? I have a friend who would be interested in that.
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I think a lot of it comes down to " ughh! they might be pikeys"! The countryside is out of bounds for anyone who doesnt ride. Likewise all mountain bikers own it. DO NOT get in the way of my offroading. " Dont you know quad bikes have priority". And God help you if you are a farmer, they have the cheek to use tractors on roads meant for 4x4s. If you shoot you are a terrorist for having a gun.
I usually live and let live, I increasingly find the reply "bollox" is managing to creep into my vocabulary. If you own the land its your bluddy business what you do with it.
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it all comes down to interpretation by the council officials if it were as easy as just pulling any old caravan onto your land everybody would be doing it the planners are there for a reason and a very good one at that an acre here a corner there shacks thrown up then sold for profit moving on to the next necessary for my livestock project no proper drainage brown manilla's changing hands corners cut regulations not adhered to etc etc don't get me started i have to live with the Shiite that these necessary developments create and spoil the landscape never mind the stink and flies in the summer >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(
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My friend has been trying to get permission for 5 years to put a house on her 20 acres (it has a huge barn, water and electrics already on site). She has had a pig cut to bits for food while still alive and they had to put it out of it's misery when they found it screaming on her usual 6 am check of the hens and ponies. She has had sheep and lambs stolen in the night - no trace, just gone. And still they would only allow her point 7 of a person to live on the land! When she had had enough heartache and sold the pigs and sheep, someone informed the planners and they took that back and she has to start all over again. It seems to me there are no rules that a lay person can work out. I just wondered if she could put a tourer up there and stay in it occasionally rather than drive back home exhausted at night.
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I am fed up of one lot of planners saying one thing and in the next county a complete and different interpretation. We are living in a recession, it isnt going away for a long time. If we dont allow other folk to use land to live and work on, big ag will swamp whats left with factories, second homers grab what affordable housing there is, result? Dead villages full of older folk, vast arable and livestock concerns that employ very few, usually foreign labour. Then the dreaded pony paddock brigade. So what we lose is a working countryside, with small farms and all that goes with it. Diversity? Yep, we create a middle / upper class inhabited countryside with twee farm shops and art galleries. Instead of the broad based self sufficient local entities a lot of us grew up in and have watched disappear. Its only when we get rid of the nimby thinking that things will change.
The EU and Westminster via a lot of town halls want a theme park, I and a lot of others think otherwise. Just because somebody wants to site a van probably live there and eventually self build isnt the end of the world. Its actually a way forward, if we block these folk and many do, we will lose whats left of localism.
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So does that mean they allow a tourer to be left, even if it is a self sufficient one? I have a friend who would be interested in that.
Aye, but strictly speaking (according to the planning gadgy) it should be moved every 28 days ;) ;)
Saying that, it has been broken into a few times.
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I usually live and let live, I increasingly find the reply "bollox" is managing to creep into my vocabulary. If you own the land its your bluddy business what you do with it.
I wish >:( when we bought ours we had the countryside 'officer' on our backs for the first two years telling us there were 'agreements' in place for two footpaths and a seperate bridle way, we demanded to see these 'agreements' as our deeds didnt show anything more than a single footpath (a re-instatement) this went on for ages with lettters from the county solicitor etc we finally ended it when we were able to prove the original buyer had entered into no agreements whatsoever but it was a load of hassle at the time and it highlights the fact that petty officials from county have unlimited resources with which to hound those who 'cross them'
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Oh Coley tell me about it! English Nature are my bane! Oh and English Heritage. One said cut The grass on the seabank ( my land of course ) The other said leave it for wildlife and stop folk walking their dogs on it. Of course they dont talk to each other do they? lol!
The locals have walked their dogs and ridden on it before either of these organisations existed, its a "historic monument" say Heritage, no its a public footpath say Nature. Its neither, even the tythe map proves it as it was church land until the war.
I threatened to level it with big plant and then fence it. They soon shutup.
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English Nature are my bane! Oh and English Heritage. One said cut The grass on the seabank ( my land of course ) The other said leave it for wildlife and stop folk walking their dogs on it. Of course they dont talk to each other do they?
We rent fields owned by English Heritage with many public rights of way across them. English Heritage put up signs asking the public to not all walk across the same bit of grass in order to reduce footpath erosion. Then the English Heritage employee mows the path, thus inviting the public to all walk across the same bit of grass ... Talk about the left and right hands...
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I know there have to be planning regulations else who knows what would happen but some of the rules seem deisgned just to annoy ordinary people and generate income for the local council.
For instance, I can put a shed in my garden - ordinary size, nothing massive - but if it's closer than 5m to the house then I have to put in a planning application which would cost more than the shed. Likewise if it's within 20m of a road, despite the fact that our land drops off quite steeply and so the roof of the shed would be below the height of the wall and so invisible from the road.
It's also the differences in the way the planning rules are interpreted between different councils, and how they tell people what they can or can't do. Argyll publish a very useful little booklet that gives very clear examples of what they consider to be permitted development. When I asked Highland if they had the same sort of thing they said no, every enquiry had to be dealt with individually.
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seem deisgned just to annoy ordinary people and generate income for the local council.
Aye, even pre development advice now carries a charge, want to discuss your proposals with a planning office? that will be £200 please, you want to discuss and a site visit? £250 that before you put in an application (at the minimum£365) no body would argue thqat planning permission is important but it is an area that is often misused, an applicatiion that the planning officers advise council meets all conditions and should be approved is often knocked back by councillors seeking to please their respective voters leading to great expense for the applicant (and ratepayers)
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are the councilors realy representing the voters or are they jobs worth little farts that have jumped on the gravey train for there own benifit >:( >:( >:(
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The latter in many cases, the rot set in when it it became a profitable little sideline rather than a civic duty
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I thought you could have a mobile building - ie anything without foundations - on your land without PP for use as a site office, R&R room or farm building. We have a caravan to have our lunch in and stay overnight while lambing and even though our parish councillors are the most Nimby ion the world, they couldn't do a thing about it.Even agricultural workers are allowed to have somewhere dry to eat their sandwiches!
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I think it boils down to permanent residence as opposed to amenity use, we have built a 40x5 mtr barn without much opposition but only because it doesnt have concrete foundations, saying that one end is slowly being converted to overnight use, what the buggers dont see wont hurt them ;)
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...what the buggers dont see wont hurt them ;)
I like your way of thinking...
I also like the 'Must have been done by a previous owner' defense. :)