Personal consent and reversion to former use

Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

Open group | Started - July 2012 | Last activity - Today

Former Member, modified 13 Years ago.

Personal consent and reversion to former use

I'm dealing with a change of use for a client from Class B8 to B2. The B8 consent (given in 2007) was described as: "Retention of change of use from general industrial (use class B2) to warehousing/distribution (use class B8)." The consent was personal, with the condition reading: "The use hereby permitted shall be carried on only by East Midland Packaging Supplies (Leicester) Ltd." The B8 firm left the premises and a B2 business is ready to occupy them. My understanding of this is that the specific personal condition used in this instance prevents any new B8 user occupying the premises without consent and also prevents a straightforward reversion to B2 use without consent. Any opinion to the contrary will be welcome!

Former Member, modified 12 Years ago.

Re: Personal consent and reversion to former use

I would be interested to know if this question was resolved? I would normally expect a personal consent condition to either make clear that the use reverts upon vacation by the named user, or that it would be treated as a temporary consent and would thus revert to the underlying use once the named user vacates, as any named user is in practice likely to be of a temporary nature.

Former Member, modified 12 Years ago.

Re: Personal consent and reversion to former use

blimey - I'd forgotten I'd posted that! Sadly, it turned into a fine example of just what's wrong with the system, not helped of course by the badly framed personal consent condition. Despite the premises being on a long-established industrial estate, and that the new occupant was an relocating, expanding (employees and floorspace) local employer, it was treated by the council as if it were a brand new industrial proposal and took some time to get approved, with the end-user setting back their move by about 6 months. All that would have been prevented had the original condition simply resulted in a reversion back to the original planning status once the personal consent beneficiaries left.