Western Morning News (Saturday)
Family’s planning battle to live on their land
ON a typical summer morning, Rachel Skyes wakes up at 5am and heads out to her polytunnel, located just a few yards from her front door, to pick her herbs and vegetables for sale.
Rachel lives in a self-built static caravan amid her four-acre farm, Cuddyford Meadow, in Ashburton. Her home’s existence was made possible in 2017 when she won temporary planning permission to live on her land, which she uses to run a small but successful business.
That temporary planning permission is nearing an end and she says her home and the business will have to go if she is unable to continue living on site.
Dartmoor National Park Authority has rejected her application for permanent permission as a farm worker dwelling – which means her work on the farm has to warrant full-time occupation – on the grounds that her business does not require her to live on site. The authority said it would not be able to discuss the case until after an appeal hearing on September 7.
As a mother-of-two with a husband who is in full-time employment off-site, Rachel says she can only look after her crops and her children by living on the land.
“I am a mum, and I am a grower. And those two things need to be in the same place,” said Rachel, who has a nine-year-old son named Zack and a 12-year-old daughter, Nell.
“They’ve got all their stuff here that they need for school. Everything’s all in one place. And I can just pop out and do jobs. It’s not like I have to drag them up here and then they sit around waiting for me with nowhere to go inside. What if it’s raining?” she said.
Rachel provides restaurants in Ashburton, Widecombe, and Dartington with fresh produce. She has a loyal, local customer base that regularly buy from her on-site stall. She also provides produce to shops in Buckfastleigh and Holme.
“Every morning, I’m getting up at five o’clock and going outside to do the work that needs to be done before it gets too hot... Often I’m working in the polytunnel until 10pm when it cools down,” she said. “If suddenly there’s a frost, you need to cover up all your delicate plants and turn the heaters on, because otherwise they’ll all be killed off. Or, if the pigs escape, they will destroy your entire business overnight,” she said.
Rachel went through a similar planning process back in 2014 when fighting for temporary planning permission, which she won on appeal. As part of her temporary permission, the home must be able to be dismantled.
“It seems to me that the national park seems to be terrified of setting a precedent with something like this, that if they allow a little project like this to go through, then everybody is going to want to do the same thing [...] but this is what we need to encourage,” she said.