A bid to restart motocross events at a track in the Herefordshire farm has been thwarted despite drawing over 200 letters of support.

Richard Hyett applied last November for a CLEUD (certificate of lawfulness) for his off-road track at Riley Hill Farm, Cradley near Malvern, claiming its use was immune from prosecution.

So-called permitted development rights allow such tracks to be used for up to 14 days a year without formal permission. But in August last year, Herefordshire Council suspended this right and required him to make a full planning application before he could continue to use it.

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Mr Hyett had argued in response that, as racing and practising at the circuit had exceeded the allowance for over ten years before the council’s direction was served, it was effectively immune from enforcement action.

His submission included a sworn statement that “we have used the track from when it was constructed in 2009 for more than 14 days in every year for practising and racing [which] we have done openly”.

Cradley and Storridge parish council said it “strongly objected” to Mr Hyett’s bid, “as it has been informed by local residents of evidence that puts doubt on the submission”.

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“We urge Herefordshire Council to check this application very thoroughly indeed and to refuse the certificate of lawfulness if there is any doubt at all,” it said, adding that racing at the track meant locals “suffer noise and other disturbance”.

Mr Hyett’s bid to put the track on a lawful footing drew 229 statements of support from enthusiasts and well-wishers, along with 39 objections.

But council planning officer Mark Tansley said that “the vast majority” of these “are comments on the merits of the activity rather than addressing the lawfulness thereof”, while some “refute the information provided with the application itself through reference to the applicant’s own past comments during previous investigations”.

He concluded that evidence submitted showed that the right to stage up to 14 events a year had been “exceeded from 2011 to 2018 inclusive, but not thereafter”.

The council “is not therefore convinced by the applicant’s own timetable of events that the permitted allowance has been exceeded for a period of ten consecutive years”, he said, and refused the application.

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