Call to stop councils blocking farm building conversions

CLA North Regional Director Dorothy Fairburn

The CLA has written to Housing and Planning Minister Brandon Lewis calling on him to act after statistics from his own Department show local authorities are ignoring the Government over permitted development rights for conversion of agricultural buildings to homes.

The organisation which represents landowners, farmers, and rural businesses said landowners are concerned about the unwillingness of local planning authorities to engage with rural economic growth.

In response to a question asked in the House of Commons, Mr Lewis revealed that the extension of permitted development rights was empowering individuals. But the latest available statistics show that since the law changed to encourage more conversion of agricultural buildings only one third of applications for conversion of farm buildings to homes have been permitted by local authorities.

CLA North Regional Director Dorothy Fairburn said: “The introduction of permitted development rights was a hard fought battle for the CLA and the Government. The fact that local authorities are blatantly refusing to follow legislation is a scandal.

“If the Government is serious about getting more underused agricultural buildings back into use and helping with our chronic housing shortage, then the Planning Minister must act to ensure local authorities take a genuinely constructive approach to permitted development.”