Here's the crack. I have an applicant who has issued a pre-application to us asking whether he could sell food (prepared at home) and drinks made in the kitchen to clients who will use his gym. Our planning team has deemed this use to be ancillary to the D2 class, and as such the pre-application advice would have stated that planning permission is not required.
Herein lies the issue.
The gym has been no planning history of the gym since its inception.
(I should note this a small premises, more of a personal trainers gym but obviously still a business in its own rights with business rates) This gym has had business rates since 2016.
So what we do have now is a business that has been operating for 2 years. Before this, the property was a restaurant (A4). It has been operating for approximately 9 years (possibly more so i am thinking if its over 10 then it would be an A4 use in planning terms) However once again there is no planning history for this. The last known planning history we have is 1990, a mixed use of D2&A5 (leisure and hot food takeaway).
So the question really is, would this deemed D2 class selling units ancillary to the business need planning or is it permitted development?
Is a question of a change of use from A4 to D2,
or a question of D2&A5 back to D2.
or is the D2/A5 use so far back that its irrelevant now.
Hope you can understand this, because its a wormhole from my perspective. also new to planning but i'm fast becoming aware of the subjective situations such as this. I want to know if there is a objective way of dealing with this.
