COUNCILLOR TO KEEP HIS HOME DESPITE PLANNING LAPSE
PERMISSION FOR CARAVANS THAT ARE HOMES FOR HIS FAMILY LAPSED IN APRIL 2020
A COUNCILLOR has managed to save the static caravan he uses for his home after his colleagues went against a recommendation which would have left him having to live elsewhere.
North East Lincolnshire Council’s planning committee has saved portfolio holder Ron Shepherd’s two static caravans after deciding to extend permission to allow them to be sited on his small holding in Bradley, near Waltham for another three years.
Planning officers had recommended the extension of use to be refused after a number of pledges to expand the agricultural business have not materialised.
The accommodation is part of an agricultural smallholding known as ‘Shepherds Purse’ where there is a farm shop and a number of paddocked areas.
Cllr Shepherd has lived at the site since April 2017 when planning permission was granted on a temporary basis for three years in order to assess whether the business was sustainable and warranted a dwelling on the site. A detailed business plan was presented at the time including a host of new ventures but the committee heard a lot of these had not progressed.
A report which went before members said there were only six sheep and a small number of chickens present on the site and therefore is not enough to warrant a home there.
It stated: “The case for the residential caravan rests on the future development of the smallholding - including the introduction of a crop nursery, expansion of the farm shop, creation of a workshop, livestock buildings, development of day care accommodation for dogs, as well as providing dog grooming services, the provision of caravan pitches and use of a fishing pond for day fishing. “However, the applicant has not sought the necessary planning permissions for a number of these activities including any expansion of a shop to sell goods other than grown on site, the development of dog care and fishing facilities. As such there is no certainty that such operations would be established nor why, if successful, there would be a need for a permanent presence of a full-time worker on site for these operations.
“Indeed it does not appear that any element of the business has been developed since the granting of permission and no further information on the financial viability of the site has been provided.” Cllr Shepherd who serves as a Conservative councillor for the Scartho Ward is the portfolio holder for Safer and Stronger Communities and is a previous Mayor of North East Lincolnshire. The permission for the caravans lapsed in April last year.
Bradley Parish Council took particular objection to an extension of permission with a strongly worded letter.
It stated: “Bradley Parish Council feel very strongly that it is time that this site owner was made to conform with all the rules and regulations attached to the site in the same way as any other resident of Bradley Parish.
“It is setting a very bad example for both Bradley Parish Council and NELC.” Committee members were reminded to treat the application on its planning terms, and not base their decision on the fact the applicant is a colleague.
Cllr David Hasthorpe said:
“We must divorce ourselves from the fact that this is a colleague and someone that we all know very well.
“There have been almost four years for the works to begin and there isn’t much evidence that anything has been done.
“He knew the deadline for the end of the planning permission was coming up and he has been blatantly been living there, even though the planning permission had lapsed, illegally.” Conservative councillor for the Haverstoe Ward Bill Parkinson stressed that the members has to take into account the mitigating factors of the family illness and the Covid-19 pandemic. In the end, it came down to the chairman’s deciding vote after four councillors voted for it, four against and one abstained.
Planning chairman Cllr Stephen Harness said: “We have given an opportunity for this family and this business but they now have to take it.”
Cllr Shepherd told the Grimsby Telegraph after the meeting: “We’ve had major health problems within the family over the past few years that has really set the development of the business back.
“This decision has given us the time and the breathing space to try to get back on track. “The way of the planning committees is that sometimes they can be political and sometimes they aren’t but they always try to make a fair decision.
“I think it was a fair decision given all the mitigating factors that we presented and I’m happy that we’ve been given permission to stay.”