DRAFT REPORT
Planning Application No: 11/2009/9379
7 Day Notice: YES / NO
1.
1.1
2.
Site Description
The site forming the subject of this application is land to the north of College Farm at
the head of College Road, Bradley. Specifically, four separate sites are identified on
the submission and described within the supporting statement. One, on the north of
the farm buildings[B] is now described as being within the farm use and two further
[A1 and A 2] on the south west side of the farm buildings and adjacent to the Old Hall
is sub divided into two and one on the east side of those farm buildings[C]
Proposal
2.1
This is an application for a Certificate of Lawful Existing Use, seeking determination
that these sites have been used as part of a civil engineering contracting plant hire
and storage facility by R.F.Maude Civils Ltd. for a period in excess of 10 years. –
stating that the use is still subsisting at the date of this application.
2.2
This submission has now been amended insofar as the area identified as [C] on the
original submission has now been reduced in area by a revision dated 2 April 2009.
3.
Planning History
3.1
Prior to July 1998 the applications recorded on the adjacent land related to proposals
to extend the farm buildings.
3.2
In July 1992 a proposal to partly demolish and convert a barn into four residential
dwellings was refused. This was subsequently allowed on appeal.
3.3
There was a subsequent application for the erection of a farm workers dwelling on
land to the south of the sites of this application. This too was refused but allowed on
a subsequent appeal. It is of significance to note that the appraisal of this application
[reference 11/2001/1331] did include a forensic evaluation of the property owned by
the applicant and his family as part of the evaluation of the need for the dwelling. This
did show that at that time Mr. R F Maude was not a full time farm worker but was also
involved in the management of the firm R.F.Maude Civils, which is described as
being based at the farm. In the statement of reasons for the appeal, it is submitted
that there is a contracting business ‘on this farm but’ that this is part of the
diversification of the business. An area set aside for this use was not identified in any
submitted evidence. In the Decision letter, the Inspector comments “In addition, the
farm is the base for a civil engineering and agricultural contracting business and now
has up to 25 full and part time staff”.
3.4
11/2005/5097 A Lawful Development Certificate relating to the use of three identified
areas of land around the farm complex for use in connection with a civil engineering,
plant hire and storage use. This certificate was refused in April 2008; the reason for
that decision being:-
3.5
“The evidence submitted with this application fails to demonstrate that the sites
identified on this submitted plans have been use continuously for the storage of plant
machinery or materials since used in connection with the claimed business for more
than ten years prior to the date of the submission or that the sites and buildings have
been used for the same purpose, without material changes or intensification for that
period”.
4.
Planning Policy Background
4.1
Not applicable
5.
Parish/Town Council Comments
5.1
Bradley Parish Council – “the above plan was fully discussed…and I have been
instructed to lodge an objection on the grounds that the locality is totally unsuitable
for use as a Civil Engineering, Contracting and Plant Hire storage facility. The site is
not suitable for the industry in terms of access road and proximity to residential
areas. Concerns raised regarding the amount of traffic generated and the weight of
such vehicles. The use of the site listed above would also generate noise and
possible pollution (air). The area concerned is also part of the Conservation Area
and partly designated as open countryside. Site visit may be beneficial.
5.2
OFFICER’S NOTE. These comments would seem to relate to an application made
to retain/establish the use of this site but do not give any information concerning the
history of this site.
6.
Consultations
6.1
No consultation are required in respect of this certificate
7.
Representations
7.1
Five individual submissions have been made from people living in the vicinity of this
site. All object to the granting of the certificate and all cite the noise, disturbance
and dangers to other road users caused by the use of the narrow village streets by
large, heavy and frequent vehicles coming to or from the premises. Two
submissions also comment on the perceived increase in activity on and around this
site since 2002. One letter specifically fears that there will be damage to the
‘recently installed’ highway drainage system which may lead to flooding.
7.2
Two further submissions have been made in the form of sworn affidavits and
accompanying evidence from occupants of nearby properties. The first, from the
occupants of a dwelling which is to the south west of the farm unit, sets out a full
history of their knowledge of operations on this site and also a careful examination
of the evidence submitted with this present submission. This analysis is done by a
person with legal experience and also includes a statement of the position in law
regarding the determination of this certificate by the Local Planning Authority.
7.3
The second affidavit is similarly detailed and also includes submissions relating to
the name and status of the applicant and the history of the companies trading from
this site; a copy of the affidavit submitted in respect of the previous CLEUD; and
new evidence taken from publically available internet sources.
7.4
In the submission made by the applicant it is stated in a letter from Mr. A. Maude
(father of Mr. R. Maude) that in 1989 Mr. R. Maude (son of the farm owner) started
to use the farm premises to run agricultural contracting work for local farmers. This
work, over the years, became more civil in nature and as a result in 1994 part of
College Farm Yard started to be used as a base for civil engineering, contracting
plant hire and storage facilities by R.F.Maude Civils Ltd. This use continues today
in the form of vehicle and plant cleaning and the use of the site for the storage of
plant and machinery. An office in the form of a portable building was placed on the
site on Area A but in 1999 this became too small and the office element was
removed to the stone building in Area A. However, to accommodate the company’s
expansion the office on the site was re-located to Summit House, Riparian Way,
Keighley in 2004.
7.5
It is then explained that the site ceased to be used as an office associated with the
company and that the companies’ use of the site can be split into distinct areas.
7.6
Area A 1, to the south west and [adjacent to The Old Hall] is used for the cleaning
of plant, storage of small hand tools and water pumps. This area was also used by
the adjoining farm for the cleaning of agricultural machinery and pieces of plant
used for the adjoining farm are also stored in this area.
7.7
Area A 2 (adjoining and to the east) is a small stone building which is used for the
storage of engineering equipment, site levelling equipment, health and safety and
for the storage of archive documents. This area is also used by the farm for the
storage of electrical equipment and welfare for the farm. In addition there are toilets
and washing facilities in this area which are use by R.F.Maude Civils and the farm.
7.8
Area B [to the north side of the farm buildings] is no longer in use by RF Maude
Civils Ltd and is now used as animal accommodation by the farm user. This
cessation of use has apparently occurred since 2005.
7.9
Area C [adjacent to a field on the east side of the farm buildings] is described in the
submission as being used for the storage of plant as well as the storage of
materials. At the time of writing…this part of the site is being used to store stone,
pipes, ducts and kerb stones. The vehicles stored on this part of the site currently
are three wagons (two 8 wheel and one 17.5 ton LGV). The plant stored on this
site….includes a 1 ton mini digger; 1 digger, 1 dumper 2 load hauls (1 for the Civils
business 1 for the adjacent farm). The following items are also stored on this part of
the site for the adjacent farm; trailer, a metal store for tools and a slurry tanker. It is
this area of the site which has now been reduced in size for the purposes of this
Certificate.
7.10
CONSDERATION OF THE EVIDENCE SUBMITTED.
7.11
Accompanying this submission are a series of documents relating to the business
use claimed to be operating for more that 10 years on this site.
7.12
Section 3 consists of a detailed log of movements of vehicles to and from this site
which is required to be maintained by the operating company. In summary, it is
explained in the submission that this amounts (September 2006 – December 2008)
to 6 vehicles per month (0.3 movements/day). This log does not identify the
individual vehicles but their loads and includes a variety of machinery, equipment
and materials; all apparently associated with a civil engineering operation rather
than farming activities. In addition, it is explained in the summary, there are the
three HGVs licenced to operate from this site through the Goods Vehicle Operator’s
Licence which was issued in 2004 allowed four such vehicles to be operated from
the site [no area for the storage of these vehicles being specified in the Licence.] It
is stated in the submitted evidence that this amounts to 6 HGV movements per day.
7.13
The next section of evidence consists of copy invoices issued to – initially – Robin
Maude at the College Crescent address and commencing in December 1994. In
1999 one such invoice is issued to R.F.Maude Plant Hire at the same address. In
2002 the firm is identified on the invoices as R.F.Maude Civils Ltd. at this same
address and they continue until August 2004 when that firm is identified as being at
the Riparian Way address.
7.14
Appendix 5 of the submission consists of third party letters which are submitted to
show that the firm(s) has been operating from the Farm site since 1994. These
include a supplier of cleansing materials; an Insurance Broker who has insured
vehicles and equipment at the College Farm address and a supplier of fuel ‘for
machinery and trucks’. There is also a letter from Mr. A. Maude (Snr) who explains
that his son Robin began by using a digger purchased in 1989 and that this digger
was used by his son for ‘hire work’ until R. Maude purchased is own excavator in
1994. It is explained that ‘he has always run his machines and transport and stored
them at College Farm’. There are then dated photographs of R. Maude on a digger
in 1987 and two vehicles, one a tractor based vehicle the other a loader/digger
stored and working within and around an un-roofed building at College Farm in
1990.
8.
Summary of Principal Planning Issues
8.1
Not relevant to this report.
9.
Analysis
9.1
The use of the land to which this application relates is, in the view of the Council “Sui
Generis”; not falling within any of the established Use Classes. Paragraph 8.21.of
Annex 8 to Circular 10/97 states “It is generally accepted that any “Sui Generis” use
which is not within a use class, such as a builder’s yard or many haulage depots,
can be materially different in planning terms from a another use which nevertheless
falls within the same general description. This means that there can be a “material”
change of use requiring planning permission between, for example, one builder’s
yard use or, in particular, a haulage depot, and another. A change of ownership or
occupation of land does not, in itself, constitute a material change of use. However,
where a builder’s yard has only in the past been used by a small jobbing builder for
his office and as a base for one or two vehicles and storing building materials, unless
that detail and level of use are specified in the certificate (or by condition or limitation
in a permission on which the LDC is based), the LPA will lack effective control in
future over any intensification of the use (perhaps by a building contractor who
introduces the storage of heavy plant and machinery, the mixing of concrete and the
manufacture of joinery items on the land). Such intensification, although arguably
constituting a material change of use of the former use, could not be controlled if the
site benefited from a LDC which stated that it was lawfully a “builder’s yard”, without
further qualification.
9.2
Where a LDC is granted for one use on a “planning unit” which is in a mixed or
composite use, that situation may need to be carefully reflected in the certificate.
Failure to do so may result in a loss of control over any subsequent intensification of
the certified use if it extends to the whole of the land comprising the planning unit, to
the exclusion of the other uses formerly taking place on some of the land.
9.3
On the basis of the submitted information there is little doubt that the administration
element of business has been carried on from an address at 5 College Crescent.
However, from the statements submitted for this and the previous submission, the
office was originally based in 5 College Crescent (not within the farm complex) but
moved to a portable building on the farm site in 1999 and finally off-site in 2004. It
would appear that the office use was not established on site for a period of more than
10 years. This, nonetheless, does not preclude the home address of the farm being
used as an address for correspondence or business. From the submitted invoices,
this address appears not to have been so used since August 2004.
9.4
In terms of the three areas identified on the submitted plan it appears that area B is
the area shown in the photographs in Appendix 5 and that in 1990 farm and/or hire
equipment was stored, or used, as part of the operation of the contracting/hire
business established on that farm by R Maude. From that evidence it may be
deduced that this use of that part of the site continued from 1990 until the first
CLEUD was submitted in 2005. That CLEUD was not granted and, by the
applicant’s own admission in this present submission, this use has now ceased and
the land now forms part of the farm operation. In these circumstances it is
considered that a certificate authorising the previous use cannot now be issued.
9.5
Area C is stated in the submission to be the main open storage area for vehicles,
plant, machinery and materials primarily, but not exclusively, associated with R.F.
Maude Civils Ltd’s operations on this farm. One letter that from the supplier of
chemicals/detergents to the farm since 1994 identifies this site as being in use
since that date. On a site visit made on 15 May 2009 Mr. R. Maude did explain that
there was, when his father took over the farm enterprise, a slurry pit on land
adjacent to the east side of the existing access road associated with the former
operation of this site as both a pig farm and a slaughter house. At that visit it was
evident that the majority of the materials and equipment stored on that site, as well
as to the east side of the access road alongside this remaining wall was primarily
associated with the Civils business; parts of southern area above the batter of the
cut out land did include parts of a the frame work of a farm building and some
sheeting and a telegraph post which were explained as belonging to Mr. Wade
senior as part of the farm enterprise. There was, in the north west corner a metal
bodied container which, in the submission made, is declared as accommodating
tools belonging to the farm enterprise. It was clear from the evidence of the site visit
and that available from the aerial photographs that this site was more extensive
than the revised site boundary now being considered and did more closely comply
with the location and dimensions shown on the original, unamended, submission.
9.6
However this size of the storage area is refuted by one of the submissions made by
a nearby resident who has claimed, from the evidence of aerial photographs that
this site was open green land – apparently used for agriculture – until 1999-2001.
On that same site meeting Mr.Maude did explain that the area had been dug out to
its present size in approximately 2000.
9.7
Other submissions also refer to a significant change in the character and nature of
the use of this site around that same date. In this context it is significant that the
GVO Licence for three wagons based at this operating base was granted in 2004.
There is evidence held which shows that prior to that date there was a licence to
operate one vehicle from this site. It is possible to conclude that vehicles were
operated from elsewhere but, on the balance of probabilities it would seem that
there was a significant change in the nature of use of this site on around the date of
issue of this licence and, clearly, this change has not been carried out for the ten
year period claimed up to 2009.
9.8
Area A 1, it is submitted, has been used for the cleaning of vehicles, plant and
equipment in the open since 1989 – or since the establishment of a separate
operating company in1994. Initially this would appear to be primarily for the
agricultural machinery but could include the digger purchased in 1989 by Mr. A.
Maude and also the machine purchased in 1994 by Mr. R.Maude. This use seems
thus to be initially ancillary to the farm use and the contracting/plant hire business
work became subsumed into this use. It is submitted that the site is also still used
by the farm business for these purposes. The building in Area A 2 would, in a
similar manner, appear to have had an initial farm use and a joint use developed as
that part of the new business operation developed. Again a material change in the
scale of the shared use by the two separate businesses may have occurred after
the three HGVs were brought onto the site and the site used for their operating
bases. This in itself would not preclude machinery, vehicles or equipment from the
Civils business being brought to the site for cleaning. It is conceivable that the
balance of the mixed use of Area A1 may have changed but there is insufficient
evidence submitted, or held by this authority, to clarify this balance.
9.9
Area A 2, the office/store for the Civils business and farm is also claimed to have a
use by both businesses. This mixed use could also involve driver/operators of
machinery arriving at the site to be cleaned or making deliveries or collections to
make use of the welfare facilities.
9.10
As is submitted by the applicant “If the LPA have no evidence of their own, or from
others to contradict or otherwise make the applicant’s version of events less than
probable, there is no good reason to refuse the application, provided the applicant’s
evidence alone is sufficiently precise and unambiguous to justify the grant of a
certificate ‘on the balance of probability’.
9.11
In summary the mixed use of the farm for the storage of a digger/excavator in 1989
and that by 1994 part of the yard was used by this business for storage. The
precise area of this use is not specified. The photographs dated 1990 seem to show
that this was area B where that use, by the applicant’s submission, has now
ceased. The areas A 1 and A 2 have had a mixed use between the farm and the
civil engineering business. No evidence has been submitted to show that one use
has or had become the dominant use or from which dates these changes may have
occurred. Part of the site (unspecified) was used as the operating base for the one
HGV under the Operator’s Licence prior to 2004.The use of Area C again has a
mixed use between the farm and the Civil Engineering business but a significant
part of this site was not in this use before the period 1999-2001. It cannot be
concluded that the whole of Area C has been available for open storage use for
both businesses for the whole of the period since the two used co-existed on this
site.
9.12
In the circumstances where there is evidence to show that there has been a
material change in the nature and scope of the operations on this site which would
have occurred after the site became the operating base for three heavy goods
vehicles and that this change can be dated to after 2004, then a certificate cannot
be issued in the terms sought by this submission.
10.
Recommendation
10.1
To issue the Certificate of Lawful existing Use or Development for the use of site A1
as being an area of mixed use by College Farm and R.F.Maude Civils Ltd for the
cleaning of plant, equipment and vehicles on this open land.
10.2
To issue a CLEUD for the use of the building on site A 2 for the storage of small
machinery, tools and equipment and archives jointly by College Farm and
R.F.Maude Civils Ltd.
10.3
To refuse to issue a CLEUD for area B to be continuously used as part of the
operation for storage or other uses by R.F.Maude Civils Ltd but to confirm the
present existing use as part of the operation of College Farm
10.4
To issue a CLEUD for the use of the revised Area C, as identified on the amended
plan received by the Council on 28 May 2009, as a mixed use by RF Maude Civils
Ltd and College Farm Ltd for the open storage of a civil engineering, contracting,
plant hire equipment and materials and for the storage of farm machinery,
equipment and materials.
11.
Summary of conditions
11.1
Not applicable.
12.
Reasons for Approval
12.1
The evidence submitted with this application, in connection with the revised site
plan received by the Council, is sufficient to demonstrate that, on the balance of
probabilities, there has been a mixed use of two identified parts of the land
surrounding College Farm by the two named business users for the operations
alleged for a period exceeding 10 years between 1994 and 2004. Accordingly the
Certificate of Lawful Existing Use may be issued in respect of those identified sites.