Non-farmers win fight to remove rule from house

A Herefordshire couple have won a planning battle to have the agricultural occupancy condition removed from their house.

Percival Smith of Field View, Gorsty near the village of Pembridge west of Leominster applied last May to have the condition that went with the original 2003 planning permission for the three-bedroom bungalow removed.

Pembridge Parish Council “continued to object” to his bid, which “has appeared in various forms on several occasions”, most recently in 2019.

Refusing the application, planning officer Matthew Neilson said that though the condition had hampered Mr Smith’s attempts to sell the property, the fact that he himself, a non-farmer, had bought the bungalow “demonstrates that it is capable of sale with the agricultural workers condition intact”.

Mr Smith had failed to show the house had been marketed “at a realistic price which reflects the agricultural occupancy restriction”, or that it was “surplus to the needs of the farm, or of other agricultural enterprises in the locality”, Mr Neilson concluded.

Mr Smith then appealed against the refusal to the Government’s Planning Inspectorate.

He submitted that the parish council had opposed the removal of the condition out of “their totally unfounded suspicion that we are somehow connected to the local farm, or the farmer, which we are not”.

The property, where he lives with his wife, “has never, to our knowledge, since it was built, had occupants who were not in breach of the AOC (agricultural occupancy condition)”, he wrote.

“We intend, God willing, to inhabit it for at least another 20 years, however this refusal means that we will NEVER be able to lift the AOC and it will therefore remain in force in perpetuity, which we feel is unfair to both us and our heirs.”

Now planning inspector C Butcher has sided with him and overturned the council’s refusal.

A certificate of lawfulness had already been issued in 2017 “on the basis that the dwelling had been occupied in breach of the relevant occupancy condition for a period in excess of ten years”, they said.

“Once the immunity period is satisfied, the taking of enforcement action is prohibited thereafter. The fact that the property subsequently changed ownership does not alter that position.”

Permission for the house without the original occupancy condition was granted.