Challenge to permission for agricultural shed

Carlisle City Council’s grant of retrospective consent for a replacement agricultural building quashed by consent where the planning officer mislead the committee by causing them to consider that the relevant standard for considering the acceptability of noise and odour impacts on the claimant’s neighboring residential property was by reference to whether a statutory nuisance would arise in a clear error of misinterpretation of policy.

The Claimant lives in very close proximity to the agricultural buildings adjacent to his grade II listed farmhouse and opposed the grant of permission for a replacement shed due under a previous application in 2020 due to the impacts arising from intensification of use.

When considering the matter in 2020 the planning officer specifically said that the opening should be away from the Claimant’s home to minimise disturbance “the opening of the shed will be to the north which is furthest away from the main farmhouse” and the replacement agricultural building was consented on that basis.

The farmer then built the replacement building with the opening directly facing the Claimant’s home in contravention of the 2020 approval and applied for retrospective consent when the Council threatened enforcement proceedings.

It is well established that impacts on amenity may be significant but still not cross the threshold of amounting to statutory nuisance.

The officer’s report for the retrospective application refers to Council policies including CM5 which says the Council will only support development which would not lead to an adverse impact of existing occupiers. However, in the officer’s advice to the committee the officer misinterpreted policy by erroneously concluding that an adverse impact on amenity would be avoided because in the opinion of the Council’s Environmental Health Officer a statutory nuisance would not arise. The Council conceded that the officer misled the planning committee by erroneously applying a wrong, and higher, threshold in determining whether policies were complied with and agreed a consent order to quash the retrospective consent and pay the claimant’s costs.