Hello, I am looking for some advice please.
We are in the process of buying a grade II listed building which has 4.5 acres of land which is classed as residential not agricultural. The land at the moment has five ponds, a small area of young woodland and the house in the centre. There is a peremiter fence, but otherwise is pretty much open rough grassland with a few drainage ditches.
We would want to do a few things with the land, the first and foremost is to fence off the ponds as we have a 4 year old boy with various serious special educational needs and he will be in the pond in a flash, we simply cannot live in the house with the ponds being unfenced. He has no sense of danger, runs off constantly and doesnt follow instructions much like having an untrained puppy!) - one of us would need to tail him 24/7. We are looking at c.180m of post and rial fencing with wire mesh to do this. We would also want to erect various stock fencing to keep pigs, chieckens, ducks and perhaps a couple of lambs for personal consumption only, we would also want to put up a largeish polytunnel.
I (perhaps Niavely) spoke to the conservation officer today who explained that we would need to submit a planning application for all the works, even as minor as the fencing. I also know that there is a neighbour who has nothing better to do than complain, is in a long running arguement with another neighbour over a boundary issue and has complained before when the current owner put up something as minor as a rose arbour.
We are due to exchange contracts in the next week days, I see we have a few options.
1. Apply for planning for everything we want to do and postpone the move until we have consent (couple of months?) - run the risk of losing the house.
2. Buy the house, put up the fencing, apply retrospecticly and also seperately for the polytunnel - run the risk of being turned down and us having to move for the safety of my son.
3. Buy the house, put up temportary fencing to keep my son safe then apply for the permanat post and rail fencing (again running the risk of not being accepted)
4. Ditch the whole thing and wait for an agriculatural smallholding to come on the market, (with no ponds!)thinking long term, if we have to apply for planning everytime we want to build a fence thats more hassle than its worth.
If anyone has any experience of smallholding with listed buildings it would be much appreciated.
Thank you in adcance,
Andrew