Leroy

Thanks so much for all your advice on this very much appreciated!

Sorry IanR you must be fed of me by now! Just another question on this if we were to apply for PP to extend the existing shed then apply for class Q I’m assuming this would then take it out of the category of being an abandoned agri building and make class Q impossible.

Perfect good news. What’s Green PD? Is this quite likely do you think? All depends on the LPA I suppose I mean the houses that are either side of the field are fairly big and the one opposite is massive with a separate pool house and everything so I would be a bit put out if that was the case. Yeah that makes sense so they would compare any application to the original structure rather than a previous application. I suppose the thing to do would be to just build it as per the original full app and then if PD rights didn’t make it big enough to then put in another full app and hope for the best. In your experience if this was the case are you better of waiting say 5 years for another full app or if I was to go for it straight away would it make much difference? Just been looking through PD rights they seem way over complicated as well! Have you had much experience with them? I’m just wondering if they’re is anything that I should be considering on the full app with regards to the curtailage of the property, I suppose it would just be make it big enough for future potential extensions?

Yeah it would be open countryside probably 800 meters from the settlement boundary. Would things be much easier if we were inside the boundary? So this is positive I will look into PD for existing single storey dwellings. Does a property in “open countryside” have the same PD rights as a normal residential house on a street. I’m thinking I would have to increase size slightly on the full app to make it liveable with a family then look to maximise PD rights retrospectively. How far do you think you could push it could you put in 2 full apps getting slightly bigger each time with the previous one to fall back on or could they withdraw the previous granted permission? Yeah did look at this but to be honest sounded super expensive! Also couldn’t find any good examples any where close.

Ok perfect so this is a box ticked. This is literally why solicitors exist! To translate legislations/deeds/covenants to plain English for normal people like me. Found this out when we bought our first house. The amount of times I heard “ohh that just means…” Yeah that’s what I had seen close but no cigar! Yeah I think when you understand the reason why something is in the legislation it makes it bit easier to understand what is trying to be achieved. So initial thoughts after your advice are I think I have a reasonable chance up until the potential size issue and structural quality. So hypothetically speaking of course, if by chance the building happened to expand over night and the internal timbers were miraculously structurally sound I think this could be a goer. As long as nobody knows the miracle has happened. Obviously prefect scenario but if this did get approved for Class Q this leaves me in another tricky situation with a building that would be realistically to small to live in with a family. By the way this isn’t something I’m doing to sell and make money the piece of land has been in the family for many many years and has big sentimental value and I’m hoping to utilise the land and secure the use for generations to come. Have you had much experience with putting a full application in after class Q was granted? I’m thinking it would look almost identical to original structure but maybe 3-4 times the size with a full planning app. The extension to the original structure would be along a hedge line so like you said earlier it would be the least intrusive and complimentary to the development as possible. From what I have been reading it can go one of 2 ways, either the attitude is a dwelling is going to be there does it really matter to anyone if it’s bigger… or Nah do one mate what you’re asking for is 3 times bigger than what you’ve got no chance! I suppose this probably depends on what mood the planners are in.

I’m even confusing my self as to what is the front and back. If you’re looking at it from the road it’s 4m wide and 8m long. The access door is on the left hand side along where the access gate off the road is and 12x12 cobbled stone yard. The lean to is on the right hand side and the other hardstanding goes about 4 meters from the 8m length of the building so possibly the back? Or if the front is defined as where the access is then it would be the side?

Ahh yes that makes total sense Well it was used as a cattle shed from the 40’s to about the 80’s as it was originally built for this purpose but I’m not sure how I would go about proving this? I see yeah that also makes sense so even if it’s used to store agricultural equipment it’s for storage and not agricultural use as such. So I’m definitely thinking I would need to clear it out and claim an abandoned shed that was used for agriculture 80 odd years ago. This is a slight head scratcher so the PD applies to the agri unit but for conversion purposes they are only interested in the particular use of the building? Yeah I thought this couldn’t be included which is why I didn’t mention it in the first place. What’s your thoughts on the current size of the shed I’m thinking it wouldn’t even meet national space standards for a one bed dwelling so the class q would be squashed straight away. If I could find some sort of proof that it used to be bigger would there be anyway of restoring it to its original size and put in for class Q then. I would assume then though this wouldn’t be classed as a abandoned shed due to recent works carried out. The only other issue with doing this all the hard standing at the rear would be gone as the floor of shed and the only hard standing left would be to front by the entrance door which is about 12m by 12m like a cobbled stone yard. Also how is it decided as to what the front and rear is, seems a silly question but if there was an access door both sides or even on all 4 sides what makes the front the front? Thanks again for all your advice! Super helpful and much quicker than going down any official channels.

I was thinking this as the timber structure internally could quite easily be replaced and no one would know any different would still look the same from the outside. It does have a lean to on the rear of the shed that we did maybe 3-4 years ago this is about 2.5m by 4.5m . Although I have seen on some applications round here they use historical aerial footage of the externals of the building. Anyone know how you get hold of these? Assuming it’s not just google earth or something. Since about 2009 its always been fairly overgrown around the shed we have left it as the brambles and overgrowth seem to be keeping it up and shelter it from the wind a bit so I wonder if you can even see much of it from an aerial view.

Yeah that makes sense. I do wonder whether we should just bite the bullet and go for full planning permission taking into account the original structure it would be quite a lot bigger but we could keep the appearance pretty similar. If we were to go down this route and it be refused would this scupper our chances of ever getting planning in the future? Was this something you were concerned about or did the private planning advice give you confidence? Ah we love St. Austell! We’re around 150 miles from there though so thinking we would be better off speaking to someone local. Thanks though

So does this always belong to the original Agri unit even if half of it was sold? Or does this then turn into 2 agri units? Yeah I suppose the only thing it’s been used for since the 80’s is to store a tractor just to cut the bridleway and hedges etc. I’m assuming this wouldn’t be classed as agricultural use? The way I understood this is that anyone can be using the land for agriculture as in we rent this out so the tenant who cuts the grass and bails it for his stock and then he uses it as grazing land for his stock as well but you’re suggesting we would personally have to be using it for our own agricultural business? (Which doesn’t exist) This is madness! So they don’t count the extension for national space standards like it doesn’t exist. So the existing structure how it is now would fail based on this alone. Many thanks for your time on this. This forum is great!

Yeah I think you’re right I’m almost sure it wouldn’t do well with a structural survey but to be fair I could add additional timbers internally prior to a survey to make it structurally sound.

Thanks for the response. What size was your shed? The bridleway is public right of way but around 80 meters from the existing shed the main entrance would be the one shared with the neighbouring property. I can’t see services being a problem. We have a water connection to an old trough right next to the shed. I think everything else should be fairly straight forward. It’s strange how there isn’t a dwelling there already to be honest as it’s on the main road going through the village with houses dotted along both sides of the road. Do you mind me asking why you didn’t go for the class q as a backup then apply for full planning as from what I’ve been reading that seems like the way to go.

Hi all just after some advice/guidance on the class q permitted development. I’ll start with giving a back story to our situation. We have an 8.5 acre piece of land, this was kept by us after the sale of the house that was on this land around 20 years ago 3 acres were sold with the house. We have since rented our 8.5 acres out to a local farmer just for hay making and the odd grazing for sheep weather dependent after the summer cut. It has a very old cattle shed that was built around the 1940’s the original structure would have measured around 4m by 11m and been open fronted, this was reduced and turned it to a storage barn probably around the 80’s and now measures 4m by 8m and is fully enclosed with one 1.5 meter access door to the front. It has been used to store a compact tractor that is used to maintain the land. It is of timber construction internally with rusty black steel cladding on the outside. It doesn’t have a solid floor as such but has like an old cobbled stone floor which measures the full length of the original structure and an extra 6m to front. We have 2 accesses off of the highway at either end of the front of the field one is shared with the original house that was sold off and the other is a bridleway/footpath running down the side of the land. So I’m trying to establish whether this would qualify for class q. I had almost discounted the class q due to the size of the shed but since the rules have changed and can now extend I’m thinking this now maybe an option to us. The main questions would be the cobbled stone yard would this count as hard standing to be able to extend or would it have to have been solid concrete? This has been buried under a few inches of soil/grass for a very long time but has always been there. The timber construction internally is very old and can’t imagine this would be structurally sound or suitable for a dwelling so would we be able to renew existing timber frame internally like for like under class q to make this suitable for a dwelling? I know since the rules have changed this year you can extend out up to 4 meters. I can’t really find anything on extending up so the shed is single storey probably 2 meters to the roof trusses. So even with the 4 meter extension it’s still going to be a very small property unless we could create a second storey. Probably the last thing is that we are around 2 miles away from a AONB. The village is split in half, half seems to be included in the AONB and the other half isn’t highlighted on the council website. If half the village is AONB does this mean the other half is automatically included even though it’s not highlighted on the map. Any help/advice/guidance would be very much appreciated. I think ultimately I will go down the planning advisor route and get some pre application advice and after looking at a few similar applications in the area they all seem to use the same company and have been successful on the applications. Just wanted to get a feel for the likelihood of this before I do. Many Thanks.

Hi all. So after renovating our first house it’s really given be the bug. I definitely think we got lucky but have never enjoyed myself so much and made money at the same time. I’m particularly after some advice on Class Q development but will post this in the necessary chat. After reading through a few threads the members here seem great very knowledgeable and have a lot more experience than myself. Looking forward to my next projects. Thanks for the confirmation Admin 👍🏼👍🏼