I wish to build a brick built workshop in my back garden. I am allowed to do this without applying for planning permission provided it built within the rules of permitted development.
However my council want to bring my property within a conservation area (this could happen within 7 weeks).This will mean that I will need planning permission for the workshop.
How do I protect my right to build the workshop without applying for planning permission (it will be refused when I am in the conservation area) I don=92t really want to start building it for another 18 months.
Start the development, and tell the planning office that you have done so. I am sure there is some case law which related to PP without a completion timescale specified, in which digging the foundations out for a house and nothing more was deemed to show that "development had started".
First IANAL. Legally, your workshop already needs planning permission, but if you start now planning permission is (assuming you're correct in your interpretation) deemed to be granted by the General Development Order ('Permitted Development'). ISTM that the best thing to do is probably to do something that counts as commencement of work, even if you then have to stop for a prolonged period, being sure that at a later date you can confirm when you actually did start. I would write to the LA stating that you intend to construct X as per the enclosed drawing and were intending to commence work immediately at your own risk and would they please confirm that it is PD. That avoids them arguing at a later date that what you are then building is not what you started.
There is just a little doubt in my mind that they could issue an Article
4 direction taking away your rights to carry on, but effectively they would be revoking a planning consent (given by the GDO) that you had decided to act on, and given that you had commenced work, you would be entitled to compensation. Definition of commencement of development is provided in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s54(4):
"The Town and Country Planning Act 1990 defines "material operation" as any work of construction in the course of erecting a building; the digging of a trench which is contain foundations, or part of foundations, for the construction of a building; the laying of any underground main or pipe to the foundations, or part of the foundations, of a building or to any such trench; any operation in the course of laying out or constructing a road or part of a road; or any change in the use of any land which constitutes material development"
If it is of great consequence I would get advice from a planning consultant.
Just because a property is in a conservation area does not automatically mean that you would not get permission. In this case it simply means that you would have to get permission rather be allowed to do it under permitted development rights. Assuming you have made a bona-fide start to the work before the conservation area becomes effective then you should be OK.
Normally, I'd agree. But in this particular circumstance, it would be worth the money to tie the council's feet up in their own paperwork. The OP can combine the application with a drawing of what he's doing and preferably a photo of the footings pegged out and a few shovels of earth dug out. Or he can of course take the risk of doing it the undocumented way.
Because of s91(4)(a) of the TCPA 1990 - there is no deemed 5 year duration for permitted development, so caution dictates keeping the development going. From a practical perspective, the neighbours and so on are less likely to find it all a great new surprising outrage years after the conservation area came in. I'm not suggesting doing very much
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