Planning officer access to site - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

This seems to be irrelevant on first cursory glance. What was the extent of the land edged red with the application?

might they be wanting to satisfy themselves that the barn is actually needed in conncetion with an agricultural use? The wording on an old ID card of mine advised: "The holder of this card is authorised to exercise the rights of entry powers contained in the following enactments. These powers include the right to enter land at any reasonable time, although 24 hours notice must be given before entering a building used as a dwellinghouse or any other land which is occupied. It is a criminal offence wilfully to obstruct this officer whilst exercising a right of entry under any of the provisions" with Secs 196A, 196B, 196B, 214B, 214C, 214D, 324 & 325 of the T&CPA'90 cited - I'm afraid I havent checked what they say or whether they remain in force, but probably not a bad place to start would be interested to know the outcome

Depends on the CL if it is for a permitted development issue of a building the council are entitled to asses that the building is reasonably necessary for the purposes of agriculture on that unit. If its is an enforcement CL i.e. building been up more than 4 years, as the planning merits are not an issue I don’t see any reason to need access to the rest of the farm.

The LDC is for permitted development (I had a sneaky look on the Council's website)! The building can only be pd if its on agricultural land and is reasonably required for the purposes of agriculture within the agricultural unit. As has been said Officers do have general rights of access to land in the furtherance of their duties. On balance I would have thought a site inspection would be necessary in order for the Officer to see how the unit functions and to thereby ascertain whether the building is "reasonably required". It's a fine line however between that, and using the application as an excuse to go snooping around the rest of the site!

Thank you for all of your replies - it has been very helpful. Basically Michael I think that you are correct when you state that it is being used as an excuse to snoop around the rest of the site - we have a complex planning history which really boils down to the new planning officer 6 years ago taking an instant dislike to us! ie. a personal rather than a professional view on our planning issues here. We have agreed to an onsite visit and looking in every building as we have absolutely nothing to hide although it is an example of the LPA's unreasonable, unfair attitude towards us. They have now decided to take it one step further and requested that an 'out of house' Ag Con comes (min£1000) - surely that would be considered to be disproportionate to the scale of the application? It is permitted development - we are a full on agricultural business, the land is, was and always has been used for agricultural and we have nowhere to store our hay! We are expanding all the time and have literally run out of space but the LPA are being incredibly obstructive to any permitted development. This is now the third time this application has come before them and we have offered every opportunity to discuss it with them always - it is now getting beyond farcical! Any ideas anyone.

if you consider the planners request is unreasonable i would advsie you appeal the LDC