Project Overview
Bell Cornwell has obtained planning permission to convert an agricultural barn in Lympstone, one of East Devon’s larger villages, into a residential dwelling.
The strategy was to first establish the residential use of the barn by securing prior approval to convert the barn using Class Q of Part 3 of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015, which limits the number of issues that the local planning authority can consider when determining the application, as it was known that officers did not deem the barn to be in a sustainable location.
The prior approval was secured and this was then followed by a full application for the conversion, which included works that would not have complied with the prior approval procedure, namely: a small increase in the dimensions of the existing building and extending the curtilage to provide a larger garden area.
East Devon District Council concluded that the Class Q prior approval fallback position was a material consideration that enabled certain local plan policy criteria to be satisfied, which otherwise would not have been in officers’ opinion. Planning permission for the conversion of the barn to a residential dwelling was therefore granted.
