Anger as farmer applies to build storage shed

AN action group has issued a call to arms after a Cornwall farmer applied for permission to construct a large storage structure on a patch of land he tried and failed to get planning permission to build a house on previously.

Chris Wilton previously applied for planning permission to build a two-storey house for his family on land at Rame Head on the Rame Peninsula, next to his family’s farm.

Mr Wilton said that the new home was needed as his family were currently living with his parents in the farmhouse, which he said was unsuitable for three generations to inhabit. Campaigners and Cornwall Council previously said the proposal would affect the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

Mr Wilton was originally granted permission by Cornwall Council‘s east sub-area planning committee, but that decision was subject to a judicial review after local campaigners said that the proper process had not been followed. In 2021, Mrs Justice Amanda Jane Tipples quashed the decision to grant planning permission. Later that year, a new planning application was submitted, but it was refused for a second time.

In the autumn of 2021, Mr Wilton launched an appeal against the decision, claiming that there is a functional need for the home. However, the appeal was eventually dismissed by the Government’s planning inspectorate.

Mr Wilton has now lodged a new application for planning permission to construct a storage shed in the same area. Arguing that there is good reason for the shed, Mr Wilton wrote in a design and access statement: “The farm needs storage for machinery and straw where we currently have over 200 bales stored outside deteriorating in this weather, as well as many of our farm implements which are deteriorating outside as there is nowhere under cover to store them. This is leading to extensive maintenance and cost, detrimental to the farm and compounded by the salt air environment.

“Although we have a primary shed on the farm, this was lost to fire and we are still waiting on its reconstruction. The design, colour and materials are the same as the one proposed which is also sited within this AONB.” Mr Wilton, a former parish council chairman, went on to state how the barn is necessary and will be built to be as compact as possible.

However, the application has enraged the ‘Stop Development at Maker’ action group, who also opposed Mr Wilton’s new home plans. The group wrote: “Here we go again... The sorry Rame planning saga sadly continues. I’d hoped we’d seen the last of the Rame Head Planning saga, but sadly the same applicant has decided to put in another application for exactly the same location; this time however for a massive ‘essential’ shed.

“It is difficult to see this other than a cynical ‘two fingers up’ to those who spent two years trying to protect the Rame Head AONB, given the applicant threatened to do just something like this if he didn’t get his ‘family house’ nearly two years ago.

“In his recent appeal ruling, the Planning Inspector couldn’t have been clearer about the open, historically important character of this part of the AONB. Sadly, the applicant has again decided to put private interest over communal interest.”

The application will be decided by council planners in due course.