A Dutch barn and lean-to on a Herefordshire farm can be converted into a home, after being found to meet the official definition of a “farm building”.

The bid had earlier failed because Herefordshire Council was unconvinced that the barn previously had an agricultural use.

A change in the law in 2015 gave individuals “permitted development rights” to change agricultural buildings, along with other building types, to houses without having to seek planning permission.

But to take advantage of this, a developer has to establish that such a building was in agricultural use on March 20, 2013.

Johnson Bros of Walsall asked Herefordshire Council in February last year to acknowledge that its planned conversion of the barn, at Woodhouse Farm within the village of Edwyn Ralph, fell under this exception, meaning no planning permission would be needed.

The application made clear that all planned works would take place within the existing, self-supporting building, with no new structural elements or foundations to be added.

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But the developer failed to convince Herefordshire Council that the barn had been in agricultural use at the key 2013 date and since.

“The previous owners of Woodhouse Farm (before the application site was sold off separately in c.2015) ran a vintage car restoration enterprise and kept ponies for domestic purposes during an approximately 15-year period up until around 2015, thus inclusive of the 2013 operative date,” its officer’s report said – uses which “do not constitute agriculture”.

But after the developer lodged an appeal, planning inspector Bhupinder Thandi said the evidence for this was “essentially anecdotal”.

“Whilst the site has been severed from an established agricultural unit, this does not mean that the lawful use of the barn and associated land has deviated from an agricultural one,” he wrote in his decision.

“Whilst the site is vacant, there is nothing to suggest that an agricultural use or business could not start up once again.”

He concluded that “on the balance of probabilities the building was used for agriculture for the purposes of a trade or business as part of an established agricultural unit on 20 March 2013, despite not being in use”, and that permitted development rights therefore applied to the barn.

But given that the barn lies within the river Lugg catchment, which forms part of the River Wye special area of conservation (SAC), the developer would still have to satisfy the council that “the development would have no adverse effect on the integrity of the habitats site”, Mr Thandi noted.

And he added: “ I note representations made by local residents in respect of land contamination caused by an anthrax-infected cattle corpse buried near the site.

“However, there is no suggestion that the proposed development would interfere with the corpse.”