Home Range 25m

[Blackstuff]

There is such as thing as Agricultural PD which allows certain activities without planning permission (including certain types of earth moving) as long as you can prove its a working farm.

Well yes there are, but compared to Householder PD they are not extensive. Added to that the land has to be actually classed as agricultural land (and that doesn't mean any old field/scrub land is) AND the works that you're carrying out have to be of an agricultural nature/related to an agricultural use. Creating earth berms for a private range is not going to meet that criteria.

There isn't any way around it, if you want to build a range, whether for private, public or commerical use, it will require planning permission, simple as. The only exception, that i'm aware of which has worked in the past (but is not court/case proven), is where easily moveable structures are erected and then dismantled each and every time the land is used for that purpose i.e. haybales in a field.

If you're really bored or having trouble sleeping the core GDPO can be read below (agricultural PD comes under Part 6) but not that this has been amended numerous times with other add-on and repalcement parts, especially the Householder section (Part 1);

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1995 ... ule/2/made

[breacher]

As soon as you start moving earth to form the slightest berm you technically need planning permission.

As with anything in life there's a cost/benefit analysis that needs to be done. If you're in the middle of nowhere, with no one to annoy/get noticed by, who's to say what was or wasn't there before you started.

On the other hand if there are any roads/public views of the land/neighbours (even those who purport to get on with you), then its almost certain that your activities will end up in front of a planning enforcement officer.

So technically if you landscape your garden and move any soil beyond ground level ( rockery or other feature ) you need permission ?

What about if its not a berm ? What if you stacked a load of sandbags ?

Yes and no! The planning use class the land falls into is all important. Residential curtilage normally enjoys certain 'Permitted Development' rights i.e. things you can build/alter etc without the need for planning permission, these are covered in Schedule 2, Part 1 of the General Permitted Development Order (GPDO) for householder type development. Some properties however do not have PD rights and require planning permission for ANYTHING that is considered to be development, i.e. all flats have no PD rights, some times they're removed from individual houses, streets or entire estates by a condition of the original planning approval for those developments. Even if your property does have PD rights depending on what you have done with the land you may still require planning permission for 'engineering works'. The right to do what you want with your own land was stripped from you by the Town and Country Planning Act 1947.

The GPDO then covers numerous other land classes/types of development, everything form CCTV cameras to windfarms and outlines what can and cannot be done, with plenty of room for interpretation between, think of it in the same way as the Firearms Act 1968 but much, much more complex!

Non-householder curtilage/agricultural land has next to no PD rights and as such virtually any development requires planning permission. Sandbags would be considered in the exact same way a berm of earth would unless you were taking them down and putting them back up every time you used the 'range', or every few months even if you didn't use it. The best backstop material to skirt the legislation are haybales, preferably the round ones which can be moved instantly by a single person if need be. However, they obviously have limited backstop capability and only really suited to containing birdshot shotgun ammo.

Interesting - .

What about fencing ? Is that considered as development ? And would a fence made of railway sleepers be regarded as a fence ? I seem to recall a height restriction on fences of 6 foot or similar ?

[Rockhopper]

I think you could quite easily create some berms and say its for agricultural reasons - livestock control for example. I have a client who's built two 465m² barns under PD that he uses to store his collection of armoured vehicles in. If he'd waiting till this year he could have increased that to 1000m²!

[Blackstuff]

[quote="breacher]
Interesting - .

What about fencing ? Is that considered as development ? And would a fence made of railway sleepers be regarded as a fence ? I seem to recall a height restriction on fences of 6 foot or similar ?[/quote]

Fencing falls into Part 2 (minor operations) and if adjacent to a vehicular highway* it is restricted to 1m, or in all other cases** to 2m. The railway sleepers idea is VERY interesting and not something i'd thought of.

If the planning department wanted to be a***holes, and many do sadly, then they could try to argue a row of sleepers weren't a legitimate/'normal' "means of enclosure", however as long as thats all they were - i.e. the didn't have earth or sand piled behind them, then that could be an option IMO. Whether 2m would be enough of a backstop is another matter however its certainly a possibility....

*there is no definition of 'adjacent' so this comes down to interpretation, in most cases its pretty obvious but their have been court cases over it

**there are some PD allowances for taller fences but IIRC they're only for schools and security type uses

[Blackstuff]

I think you could quite easily create some berms and say its for agricultural reasons - livestock control for example. I have a client who's built two 465m² barns under PD that he uses to store his collection of armoured vehicles in. If he'd waiting till this year he could have increased that to 1000m²!

Lol, don't mention his name/location then because storing military vehicles isn't an agricultural use and therefore the barns are no longer PD and the fee alone for the application would go on the floor area of the building at £462 per 75 sqm!!

[Rockhopper]

I'm aware of that! :-)

[Rockhopper]

You can push the boundaries of what possible with panning quite a way sometimes. We did a four car garage under PD (roof height etc) then a year later declared it as being no longer needed and served prior notification on the council that we were converting it into habitable accommodation. Absolutely nothing they could do to stop us. I think we've done that three times now...
My tank man keep a few straw bales and a tractor in his "barn" and they are happy. He does use some of his collection for work around the farm to be fair.

[1066]

A thirty yard poly tunnel with a single row of carrots might be handy too.

[qws]

Thanks everyone for the views. We have now sorted how and what we can do, so I expect to start work in the spring once everything is in place.

[breacher]

[quote="breacher]
The railway sleepers idea is VERY interesting and not something i'd thought of.

[/quote]

Where do I send my invoice for this consultancy work ?