Do need planning permission?

Parts 6 and 7 of the Town and Country Planning General Development Order 1995 gave farmers the right to construct or extend agricultural buildings without requiring a formal planning process to be followed providing that certain qualifications were met. This is known as Permitted Development. Now the good news ends there. Although no planning process is necessary in the full sense of the words the local authority retains the right to "concern" themselves with : the siting, design and external appearance of a proposed new agricultural or forestry building and its relationship to its surroundings; the siting and means of construction of roads; the siting of those excavations or waste deposits which individually or collectively exceed 0.5 hectare within the unit; the siting and appearance of fish tanks (cages). Now fish tanks and cages crops up an awful lot in the legislation but from now on I am just going to exclude all references to fish in order to keep your interest. Even though the legislation gives you permitted development rights you still have to make an application to the Planning Authority telling them what you are going to build so that they can decide whether or not your project qualifies. This is termed an "Application for Prior Notification of Proposed Agricultural or Forestry development � proposed building" ( aka 28 Day Notice - more on this later). Even if it does qualify and cannot therefore be refused in principle, they will still be able to dictate how the building is sited and the materials used. This is most likely to become intrusive in National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Beauty, in these locations the an "Article 4 Direction" may be imposed. While permitted development rights exist everywhere it is possible for the Local Authority to use Article 4 to remove those rights and force a full planning application in sensitive locations such as National Parks and AONB's. However it should be noted that you cannot be made to pay a full planning fee! All that can be asked for is the prior notification fee which is a lot lower.