Petition on the Huge Inappropriate Agricultural Barn in Canada Road, West Wellow

This initiative seeks to influence the Parish, District, Borough & County Councils, along with our MP and local planners to press for changes to the ill-considered, 2015, Town & Country Planning Act. This gave a raft of Permitted Development Rights (PD) to the agricultural industry whilst at the same time totally failing to respect or protect households who share the countryside with the farmers. Basically, they tell planners what they want, the place that they want it and don’t even need to inform anyone living around where it is happening.

This barn was erected in June’20 with less than 12hrs notice to the three nearest residences, this despite planning permission having been awarded eleven months earlier, on 28th June’19. If you or your friends live close to a field of over 1 hectare (2.47 acres) which is classified as agricultural land, this could happen to you. Not only that but it could happen without any consultation or warning.

You could be away on a fortnight’s holiday and return to find a structure like this has appeared close to your home

These PD rights only accrue when the total holding is over 5 hectares. This only a 1.8 hectare (4.5 acre) field so was linked to a local farmer’s land to achieve this threshold. The planning application was in the name of the farmer but the barn was paid for and is the property of the owner of the field, a non-farmer. It is allowed to be sited anywhere in the field provided it is over 2m from the boundary. The owner has not offered a logical explanation for the siting of this barn but a clue may be that it has been aligned with the building line of the road. A barn can migrate over time to being an agricultural worker’s dwelling then on to a new residence which typically takes around 8 years, though currently this is more difficult to do in a National Park.

If like most, you feel that this Permitted Development process is totally inappropriate and can lead to unacceptable outcomes, please sign this petition. It seeks to bring about change to legislation and if possible, get this ugly barn removed or re-sited to a more suitable place.

After all, this is happening within the curtails of the New Forest National Park.