Agriculture and forestry have long benefited from permitted development rights (PDR), which avoid the need for submission of planning applications, although the prior notification/ approval procedure sometimes applies.
The Scottish Government have issued a consultation paper on proposals to extend/ introduce rights for:
• larger agricultural buildings
• conversion of agricultural and forestry buildings to residential and other uses
• clarifying the planning status of polytunnels
• peatland restoration
Larger agricultural buildings
The Scottish Government acknowledges that farming practices have evolved and associated machinery has increased in size and complexity.
They propose to increase the maximum ground area of a building that may be erected or extended from 465sqm to 1,000sqm; and amend the definition of “significant extension” and “significant alteration” to refer to a 20% increase in the cubic content of a building.
Taken together, the effect of these changes would be to approximately double the size of new agricultural buildings that may be erected under PDR (subject to prior approval), and double the size of extensions to existing agricultural and forestry buildings that may be carried out without requiring prior notification/ approval.
Conversion to residential
The Scottish Government want to support the provision of new homes in rural areas by making it simpler to convert existing agricultural buildings to residential use.
The proposal is to introduce PDR for change of use of an agricultural building (and any land within its curtilage) to one or more dwellings (houses or flats), and the reasonable building operations necessary for the conversion.
There are several restrictions:
• A prior approval procedure would give the planning authority the opportunity to review design and external appearance (if building operations are proposed); the provision of natural light within proposed habitable rooms; transport and access; flood risk; contamination risks; and noise.
• a maximum of five dwellings within an agricultural unit could be developed
• the size of each home to be a maximum of 150sqm.
• excludes a listed building or if the site is (or contains) a scheduled monument.
• the building must have been used for the purposes of agriculture on or before 5 November 2019; or, in the case of buildings brought into use after that date, for a continuous period of ten years prior to the conversion taking place.
Conversion to commercial use
This proposal is intended to help support economic diversification, facilitating conversions to commercial uses such as shop, café, restaurant, and office.
The proposal includes a wide range of uses: class 1 (shops), class 2 (financial, professional and other services), class 3 (food and drink), class 4 (business), class 6 (storage or distribution), and class 10 (non-residential institutions, which includes museums and galleries).
The proposed restrictions are:
• Where the cumulative floorspace of a building or buildings that have changed use under this PDR exceeds 150sqm within an agricultural unit, a prior approval procedure would give the planning authority the opportunity to review design and external appearance (if building operations are proposed); transport and highways; flood risk; contamination risks; and noise.
• total cumulative floorspace of a building or buildings that may change to a flexible commercial use under this PDR may not exceed 500sqm within an agricultural unit.
• excludes a listed building or if the site is (or contains) a scheduled monument.
• the building must have been used for the purposes of agriculture on or before 5 November 2019; or, in the case of buildings brought into use after that date, for a continuous period of ten years prior to the conversion taking place.
Forestry buildings
The Scottish Government also propose similar PDR to convert forestry buildings into residential/ commercial use.
Polytunnels
Where polytunnels constitute agricultural buildings, the increased PDR mentioned above will apply. However, there is no proposal to introduce a specific PDR for polytunnels, because of considerable variation in scale, nature and permanence of polytunnels.
The Scottish Government propose to:
• Amend the fees regulations to clarify the appropriate fee where a polytunnel development requires an application for planning permission.
• Prepare new guidance clarifying PDR under which polytunnels may be erected or provided.
• Prepare new guidance, to be taken into account where a polytunnel proposal is the subject of a planning application, highlighting the need to give appropriate weight to the economic/ agricultural benefits of polytunnels and the role they can play in extending the growing season and supporting local produce.
Peatland restoration
The Scottish Government expect the scale and number of peatland restoration projects to increase, to meet the annual target of 20,000 hectares.
As peatland restoration projects will likely to be subject to oversight from Peatland Action, or validation under the Peatland Code, the Scottish Government pose a series of questions about whether wide-ranging PDR can be introduced.
Consultation
If you would like to input into the consultation, you can do so by visiting the Scottish Government website. The consultation runs until 12 November 2020. We would recommend reading the paper, to understand fully how your business might benefit.
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