Poo!!

[TonyN]

Had a visit from the council planning guy this week, investigating claims of various breaches of planning by me running a business from our residencial property!!

Just to stick the knife in they've also done us for keeping horses and building stables and an arena 'for a possible equestian business' on agricultural land, as well as the buisness parking trucks on it.

In the current climate in the village its unlikely I'm gonna get planning to run a car repair buisness here, and I don't make anyway near enough money to rent a unit yet (plus would rather be at home anyway)

As the horses being at home are far more important to us than the business, we're going to 'temporarily stop working on 4x4's officially' so we have less hassle getting the horses planning sorted out, as this will give the busybodys in the village less to complain about, as we are allowed to graze horses, but not do anything with them, so just the arena needs planning permission, and change of use, but the rest of the fields are OK.

Also we have nearly got everthing ready for building the house extension, so I was going to be putting 4x4toys on 'hold' anyway while we rebuild our house, so its not such a big deal short term.

But before lots of people get to worried about their trucks, it not the end of the world, they can't stop me working on my trucks or for 'friends from the forum with cash', it just can't be official buisness work.

I'll try and spend a couple of days a week doing trucks, the rest will be house building, so please except apologies in advance, as you'll probably find lots of notice will be required for fixing trucks for a year or so, and we want to try and get a little more geared up for selling 4x4 stuff on-line to make a bit of money.

Thanks.

[captain_chaos]

sory to hear, hope everything gets sorted

[Apache]

If you were in the middle of the village, maybe I could understand it, but you're not. What's the problem??

Bl00dy busybodies with too much time on their hands!

Can I book an MOT for October 12th 2008?

(Actually, seriously! MOT and service items TBD. Makes life easier for both of us if I book now I guess!)

[pirate-storm]

to many people wont mind their own business.prob some moaning anti 4x4 in your area tony keep quiet n it will all come out in the end of who done it..
didnt think they could do anything about the horse arena as it not a perminant fixture it can be put back to normal .
some people make me sick a you either try to help others or get on with your own life n try n make something of it n others aint happy.
im not mechanically minded or cant do alot but if you need a hand with house i'll try my best to help you n linda might do my confidence some good also so willing to help you tony anytime a couple of days a month can always sleep in my surf.
so are they going to moan when you have us lot up there for the advents you have?
some people got nothing better to do have they the bar stewards

[Karma Supra]

Littel beaurocratic $$$$$$$s!!

Hope you get it all sorted!

We had a mare with south oxfordshire planning when we wanted to build out garage... they came up with all sorts of $$$$!

[The Lovely Boyo]

Or we could have garage days where you turn up as our guest lecturer and get paid for your 'services'!!!! pun intended


A friend of mine was reported for running a small equestrian school without permission. Then one day she noticed the village sneek hiding in some bushes taking photos for proof.

So she took a photo of him taking his pics, pinned it up in the village pub and asked if anyone knew who the paedophile was taking photos of their little girls on the ponies. The parents reported him to the police and all hell breaks loose - revenge!!!!!

[Snoop]

Damn, sorry to hear that Tony. Harsh that's it 4x4Toys AND the horses! You'll have to break the news to the SDV gently that it might not be vacationing in Basingstoke quite so often?!

[pirate-storm]

might be time to look for that place in cornwall tony

[Dori]

i'm so sorry to hear that, some people are so small minded! you do no harm to anyone so they should keep their noses out! hope all goes well with the house and you get the planning you need for the horses!

all our best

[Sancho]

Tony,

I need a little service done some time over the next six weeks - any chance? I can of course pay cash....

On the planning, don't worry too much. You haven't actually done anything illegal yet. They need to serve you with a formal notice and you then need to ignore the notice before you've done anything naughty.

From a brief look at the local plan, your house and garage are in an identified 'settlement' and the policy is that "Residential and other development and redevelopment proposals which contribute to social, economic and environmental well-being will be permitted within the Settlement Policy Boundaries of the following settlements". You have a decent chance of getting planning permission on the basis that you are looking for change of use from residential to residential and commercial with no loss of residential. I would approach it from the angle of providing a small business in a local community and supporting its economy. You can also show that you are helping to support the garage that does the MOTs by providing them with business. You can also make something of the fact you'd need to drive to work if you hired a unit and that would have an environmental impact. The love that sort of thing.

The horses are a bit trickier, because the boundary of Cliddesden (for planning purposes) runs down your drive, so the field is in the 'Countryside' and development (that covers change of use too) is generally not allowed. But there is also a policy that says "As an exception to the general protection of the countryside adjacent to rural settlements, planning permission will be granted for development which the Council is satisfied will meet a genuine local need such as affordable housing, health, education, a similar community need or to provide small-scale employment premises. Development proposals should complement the character of the rural settlement, the character of the surrounding landscape and not be harmful to the rural environment." I think you can definitely argue that stables are complementary to rural settlement and that the aren provides small-scale employment premises, so you should get permission for that too.

Have you got planning permission (or have the Council said you don't need it) for the extension?

There are two tricks to planning applications. First, don't p1ss the planning officer off. They might be jumped up bureaucrats but most are pretty unhappy with their jobs and will actually make a lot more effort for you if you make it easy for them. Secondly, follow the planning policy (hence what I said above). Legally, every person in the village could complain about how unhappy they are but you should still get permission as long as you are in line with the policies.

If the climate in the village is a bit dodgy, you could try applying for temporary planning permission for the change of use of the garage. That would mean you had planning for, say, five years so people would be a bit happier that it wasn't going to be a permanent fixture.

Let me know if you need help putting planning applications together. You might have a nasty surprise when you see how much stuff they ask for.

[servechilled]

I've got access to my unit armory... and ammunition. A few of my mates drive the Challenger II...

Basically, I can get us all a rifle each, ammunition and to top that I got a load of those camo hunting hats in my store so we can kill in style. With weapons, cool appearance and tank support the busy bodies in the villiage stand no chance!!!

All we need now is a theme tune! Woohaa!

[stormforce]

I've got access to my unit armory... and ammunition. A few of my mates drive the Challenger II...

Basically, I can get us all a rifle each, ammunition and to top that I got a load of those camo hunting hats in my store so we can kill in style. With weapons, cool appearance and tank support the busy bodies in the villiage stand no chance!!!

All we need now is a theme tune! Woohaa!

Sorry about your bad luck Tony.Some people just don't know when to keep they're noses out of other peoples business do they

i can do with some of that down this way aswell,but can you demolish 1 house and leave the next door still standing tho

[TonyN]

Cheers Adam, the house extension is all sorted and legal.

As far as the fields go, we've found out its fine to let the horses wander round them. The stables, or rather the pig shed we refurshished is on the orignial plans that are over 30 years old, and the planning guy now has no issues with them now, the only bit we need to apply PP for is the arena, and change of use, as you can't 'pursure equestrian activities' on Agricultural zoned land.

As far as the business goes, I wasn't going to doing much while we're building the house, so I rather let it go, and apply for fresh next year, when everything has settled down. Temporay PP was something we'll consider.

We're cool with the planning guy, most of the info and help we have came from him.

[pirate-storm]

Cheers Adam, the house extension is all sorted and legal.

As far as the fields go, we've found out its fine to let the horses wander round them. The stables, or rather the pig shed we refurshished is on the orignial plans that are over 30 years old, and the planning guy now has no issues with them now, the only bit we need to apply PP for is the arena, and change of use, as you can't 'pursure equestrian activities' on Agricultural zoned land.

As far as the business goes, I wasn't going to doing much while we're building the house, so I rather let it go, and apply for fresh next year, when everything has settled down. Temporay PP was something we'll consider.

We're cool with the planning guy, most of the info and help we have came from him.

n dont forget ive offered to help if you need me tony your the boss lol

[FISH EAGLE]

Sorry to hear this Tony,some people are just not happy seeing someone trying to better themselves. Hope you get it all sorted soon.