The planning application for the 2nd phase of development at the Sunray pub will be live on the Council’s website very soon. The ‘description of development’ will be “Erection of new class C3 residential buildings & change of use and conversion of existing outbuilding to C3 residential to create 12 units of residential accommodation. Alterations to the public house. Associated access, landscaping & parking”. The ‘description of development given to any development proposal is very important; it defines what is happening in planning terms. It should be concise, and only refer to things which amount to development as defined in planning law. If any restrictions are to be applied to a development, for example to bring it in to line with local policies, those restrictions can be applied using planning conditions. In this case, as explained in the submitted planning statement, whilst the description of development seeks permission for the erection of residential buildings (the ‘built tourist accommodation’ allowed by local policy) we fully anticipate that if the local planning authority is minded to grant planning permission, it will include a planning condition limiting the use of the buildings to holiday accommodation only. When the Council consults on the planning application please feel free to remind the Council on this point.
For anyone who is interested the approach to using planning conditions to place restrictions upon development is backed up by well-known case law:
“In the I’m Your Man Limited case it was established that any limitation on the grant of a planning permission is only legally effective if it is secured by a condition” (Limitations on Planning Permissions and Material Changes of Use | DLA Piper)
“The Court of Appeal recently clarified the effect of the principle that, when planning permission is granted for a certain use, any limitation on how that use is to be exercised should be imposed via a condition. This has refined the approach previously established in a case that surely ranks in every lawyer’s list of ‘Top 10 Case-Names’: I’m Your Man Ltd v Secretary of State for the Environment [1].” (Limiting a planning permission and the role of conditions - Walker Morris)
At pre-application stage the Council highlighted this route themselves (highlighted below):
“Due to the site’s location outside of any defined development boundary a housing-led development would not be supported under current policies. Policy SUS2 does identify tourist accommodation as one of the forms of development which may be supported outside of the defined development boundaries, and policy ECON6 also indicates that new built tourist accommodation will be supported in settlements of 200+ population. For the purposes of this policy, ‘built tourist accommodation’ refers to permanent accommodation such as hotels, guest houses, B&Bs and holiday lets. Therefore, while new open-market housing would not be supported in this location, there is potential under policies SUS2 and ECON6 for tourist accommodation. Should tourist accommodation be allowed then any planning consent would be subject to ongoing restrictions to ensure that the accommodation was only used for holiday purposes”.