Camping Pods - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)
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En cours - juillet 2012
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Dernière modification - May
Camping Pods
A nice easy question for a Friday morning. Camping pods ( I wanted to attach a photograph but don't seem to be able to - but you know what I mean. Little wooden 'tents' that provide basic overnight accommodation - see http://www.thepod.info/) ... operational development or a material change of use? Mike Hyde
As this is hypothetical it doesn't really matter. What I what to get a feel for is how a proposal would be assessed. For the provision of pods to amount to development it has to be either operational development or a material change of use (or even possibly both). If it's concluded that there are no operations then are they solely a use of land. If the answer to that is yes only then will the existing use be relevant in terms of assessing whether the change is material. Conversely, if its concluded that operations have taken place, then if there are no pd rights available an application would be required whatever the use. Mike
Mike we have dealt with several cases involving camping pods in recent years. The ones we deal with are manaufactured as a single unit and delivered to the site complete. Site preparation is minimal and the unit placed on site. We have not found any that involve operational development on the site I think. The siting of the camping pod units are capable of resulting in a material change in the use of the land. We have taken the view that although camping pods are distinctly different in terms of appearance they are capable of meeting the legal definition of a caravan. So, it is possible that they could be sited on a lawful caravan site without the need for an application for planning permission. We have found that the interest is normally as farm diversification or on tented sites and we have dealt with applications for these.