Canal Side land value

[cuthound]

4 minutes ago, haggis said:

I remember these horrible high conifers! 

 

A photo of them, showing how they had overgrown the canal and took up more water space than a moored boat formed part of my mooring application.

 

[Mac of Cygnet]

6 hours ago, perfectlydressed said:

a pre app shows recreational use would be favorable,

 

This from the original post.   Perhaps the OP could find out exactly what this means - it would certainly clarify things.

[GUMPY]

Recreational use certainly covered my old mooring. They only needed PP/Change of use when the owners  decided they needed a house on site, this was after running the mooring for over 25 years without living on site.

Edited March 20, 2023 by Loddon

[Alan de Enfield]

43 minutes ago, Mac of Cygnet said:

 

This from the original post.   Perhaps the OP could find out exactly what this means - it would certainly clarify things.

 

From the statement I'd guess that it is agricultural land that has no PP but that they would look favourably on granting PP for leisure use

 

Edit to add :

'Leisure use' is a Class D2 development and includes :

 

..............a swimming bath, skating rink, gymnasium or area for other indoor or outdoor sports or recreations, not involving motorised vehicles or firearms.

Edited March 20, 2023 by Alan de Enfield

[Tacet]

6 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

The law states that no planning permission is needed to revert any land or buildings to agricultural use. I could buy up the ASDA shop in the middle of (say) Birmingham, close it and use it to keep Tractors, machinery or pigs in it and the LA could not stop you (as told to me by the Planning Advisor to the Government who was advising me and preparing the case to go to court)

The storage of machinery or tractors is by no means necessarily an agricultural use and there is certainly potential for it to be a material change of use and thus require planning permission to be immune from enforcement action.

[enigmatic]

The other thing to take into account is what the bank is like. Even if you get all the relevant permissions to plonk a boat there, it's possible the water is too shallow to properly moor there, and having the right to moor doesn't mean you have the right to dredge or sort out the squidgy bank or build a little wooden jetty. IIRC there was a topic recently where someone did actually own some land and have mooring rights and they were still having trouble trying to make their mooring usable.

 

Peak Forest is a lot better than, say, the Rochdale for actually being able to get near the bank, but I do remember some stretches where there were underwater obstructions on the towpath side that made it impractical to moor there, and I'm sure the off side will be worse.

[Alan de Enfield]

40 minutes ago, Tacet said:

The storage of machinery or tractors is by no means necessarily an agricultural use and there is certainly potential for it to be a material change of use and thus require planning permission to be immune from enforcement action.

 

Any land or building can revert from whatever use it has PP for (industrial, commercial, domestic) to Agricultural without requiring change of use, or PP.

 

This is what we won our case on.

 

Town and Country Planning Act 1990 – sec 55

Meaning of “development” and “new development”.E+W

(1)Subject to the following provisions of this section, in this Act, except where the context otherwise requires, “development,” means the carrying out of building, engineering, mining or other operations in, on, over or under land, or the making of any material change in the use of any buildings or other land.

[F1(1A)For the purposes of this Act “building operations” includes—

(a)demolition of buildings;

(b)rebuilding;

(c)structural alterations of or additions to buildings; and

(d)other operations normally undertaken by a person carrying on business as a builder.]

(2)The following operations or uses of land shall not be taken for the purposes of this Act to involve development of the land—

(a)

(i)

(ii),

 

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)the use of any land for the purposes of agriculture or forestry (including afforestation) and the use for any of those purposes of any building occupied together with land so used;

 

 

We were lucky to have a good access to our MP and a QC who wrote the the LA Chief Exec basically saying "Mr Enfield is correct in his claims, please sort this out in the most expeditious manner".

 

Had a meeting with the Chief Exce, signed an agreement not to take any further action and received  cash for the inconvenience and incorrect guidance given by the planning department.

 

The Governments own Rural Planning Department provided me with many examples of court cases confirming my reading of the Act was correct.

 

The one probably swung it for me was :

 

 

Edited March 20, 2023 by Alan de Enfield

[Tacet]

30 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Any land or building can revert from whatever use it has PP for (industrial, commercial, domestic) to Agricultural without requiring change of use, or PP.

 

This is what we won our case on.

 

Town and Country Planning Act 1990 – sec 55

Meaning of “development” and “new development”.E+W

(1)Subject to the following provisions of this section, in this Act, except where the context otherwise requires, “development,” means the carrying out of building, engineering, mining or other operations in, on, over or under land, or the making of any material change in the use of any buildings or other land.

[F1(1A)For the purposes of this Act “building operations” includes—

(a)demolition of buildings;

(b)rebuilding;

(c)structural alterations of or additions to buildings; and

(d)other operations normally undertaken by a person carrying on business as a builder.]

(2)The following operations or uses of land shall not be taken for the purposes of this Act to involve development of the land—

(a)

(i)

(ii),

 

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)the use of any land for the purposes of agriculture or forestry (including afforestation) and the use for any of those purposes of any building occupied together with land so used;

 

 

We were lucky to have a good access to our MP and a QC who wrote the the LA Chief Exec basically saying "Mr Enfield is correct in his claims, please sort this out in the most expeditious manner".

 

Had a meeting with the Chief Exce, signed an agreement not to take any further action and received  cash for the inconvenience and incorrect guidance given by the planning department.

 

The Governments own Rural Planning Department provided me with many examples of court cases confirming my reading of the Act was correct.

 

The one probably swung it for me was :

 

 

Yes.  And if you store machinery, it is quite probably a Class E use rather than an agricultural one.

 

[Alan de Enfield]

14 minutes ago, Tacet said:

Yes.  And if you store machinery, it is quite probably a Class E use rather than an agricultural one.

 

 

We discussed this and, yes, If you stored cars it would not be agricultural, but using existing buildings could be used to store Agricultural machinery including tractors.

 

So, for example, a village pub can be used for keeping animals, then you remove the animals and store agricultural eqipment;

 

Another of the examples sent to me by the Governement Rural Planning Dept.

 

 

 

Edited March 20, 2023 by Alan de Enfield

[dmr]

Rather than thinking about farms and pubs etc etc, here is a document relating directly to mooring boats on a canal.

 

http://kanda.boatingcommunity.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/http___www.pcs_.planningportal.gov_.uk_pcsportal_fscdav_READONLY_OBJCOO.2036.300.2.6228648NAME_Decision.pdf

 

I think this has been posted on this forum before but obviously forgotten.

I find a couple of the arguments a bit surprising but it works in favour of boats and boating so is a good thing.

 

[exmember290323]

Its interesting reading the replies thank you everyone.

 

7 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

I did not think I needed PP to fill in a hole, but once the LA PP department get involved the gloves are off.

The Planning Officer not only invented laws, pre-dated letters and she said the county Solicitor had given her the information - all of it was untrue which is why I got a very nice lump sum from the LA to keep it out of the newspapers.

 

Many year ago we lived in Sale and the LA there was similarly "misguided"

Sounds like you had a right one to deal with, but we must remember if the gloves are off for them then they are equally off for us too.

[cuthound]

2 hours ago, enigmatic said:

The other thing to take into account is what the bank is like. Even if you get all the relevant permissions to plonk a boat there, it's possible the water is too shallow to properly moor there, and having the right to moor doesn't mean you have the right to dredge or sort out the squidgy bank or build a little wooden jetty. IIRC there was a topic recently where someone did actually own some land and have mooring rights and they were still having trouble trying to make their mooring usable.

 

Peak Forest is a lot better than, say, the Rochdale for actually being able to get near the bank, but I do remember some stretches where there were underwater obstructions on the towpath side that made it impractical to moor there, and I'm sure the off side will be worse.

 

Again when CRT finally approved my mooring they said they cannot guarantee adequate depth and I would have to pay for any necessary dredging using one of their approved contractors. They also advised (in 2013) that this would cost a minimum of £6,000.

 

Fortunately there was adequate depth, although on the odd hot summer when water levels drop my boat ends up firmly on the bottom.

Edited March 20, 2023 by cuthound
To add the last paragraph

[David Mack]

3 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

Again when CRT finally approved my mooring they said they cannot guarantee adequate depth and I would have to pay for any necessary dredging using one of their approved contractors. They also advised (in 2013) that this would cost a minimum of £6,000.

I know one end-of-garden moorer who told me he quietly went out one day in waders to encourage a few small boulders away from the spot where he wanted to moor his boat.

[cuthound]

Just now, David Mack said:

I know one end-of-garden moorer who told me he quietly went out one day in waders to encourage a few small boulders away from the spot where he wanted to moor his boat.

 

Sshh 😅

[dmr]

17 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

Again when CRT finally approved my mooring they said they cannot guarantee adequate depth and I would have to pay for any necessary dredging using one of their approved contractors. They also advised (in 2013) that this would cost a minimum of £6,000.

 

Fortunately there was adequate depth, although on the odd hot summer when water levels drop my boat ends up firmly on the bottom.

 

Dredging is actually quite cheap on a £ per cubic metre basis, especially if the silt is not contaminated and can be dumped on your own land rather than taking it away.

The downside is the "mobilisation" charge for bringing the dredger and hopper in by road and craning them into the canal. Thats £10,000 😀

[Tacet]

2 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

We discussed this and, yes, If you stored cars it would not be agricultural, but using existing buildings could be used to store Agricultural machinery including tractors.

 

It needs to be an agricultural use and not merely agricultural machinery in storage.

 

A shedful of tractors fresh from the New Holland factory and awaiting delivery would be a class B8 use.

8 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

I did not think I needed PP to fill in a hole, but once the LA PP department get involved the gloves are off.

The Planning Officer not only invented laws, pre-dated letters and she said the county Solicitor had given her the information - all of it was untrue which is why I got a very nice lump sum from the LA to keep it out of the newspapers.

 

Many year ago we lived in Sale and the LA there was similarly "misguided"

PP is required to fill in a hole insofar as it might be an engineering operation.  But PP is granted by the General Permitted Development Order (subject to various conditions) and a formal application may not therefore be required.

This is rather different from a change of use to agricultural purposes which is deemed not to comprise development and therefore does not even get to first base in planning terms.

[Alan de Enfield]

2 hours ago, dmr said:

Rather than thinking about farms and pubs etc etc, here is a document relating directly to mooring boats on a canal.

 

http://kanda.boatingcommunity.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/http___www.pcs_.planningportal.gov_.uk_pcsportal_fscdav_READONLY_OBJCOO.2036.300.2.6228648NAME_Decision.pdf

 

I think this has been posted on this forum before but obviously forgotten.

I find a couple of the arguments a bit surprising but it works in favour of boats and boating so is a good thing.

 

 

And as Nigel Moore said at the time, the case was specifically regarding mooring on the K&A & the appeal was primarily successful because of an old Byelaw specifically allowing mooring when the boat is not navigating.

(It would not be relevant elsewhere)

 

“The 1827 byelaws of the Kennet and Avon Canal provided, at byelaw 16: ‘That every boatman or other person having the conduct of any boat, barge, or other vessel shall, when the same is not navigating upon the Canal, moor and fasten the same at both ends, close to the bank on the side of the Canal opposite to the towing path, but not under a bridge, upon an aqueduct, or in a lock or stopgate, not within a hundred yards of the same, under penalty of twenty shillings’.”

 

Nigel said :

 

Not everything he (Nigel Johnson) claimed in the BW statement was equally valid, but the above is a valuable insight into the administrative thinking [and the BW appeal against the Planning Decision was successful].

[Mike Todd]

On 20/03/2023 at 14:44, cuthound said:

 

Before I bought my canalside house I approached CRT to see if they would give permission to develop a mooring there.

 

Their response was that the landowner must apply for permission (at a cost of £90 back in 2013) and they would only then decide.

 

I explained to CRT that obviously the person selling the house wasn't interested in applying for a mooring, and that I didn't want to buy the house if there was any chance of the mooring being rejected. We went around in circles until I phoned a CRT director and explained my problem to him.

 

He then accepted my suggestion that I apply with a covering letter from the person selling the house giving his permission for me to apply. Although the process was supposed to take 6 weeks from CRT's  receipt of my application it took double that, despite frequent chasing up by me.

 

Permission was eventually granted so that I could go ahead and buy the house but I had to meet the requirements of their environmental report, which meant I had just one day after moving in in to fell 26 conifers before the bird nesting season started.

That must be considered a fairly modest charge in comparison with all the other checks/searches that have to be made when buying a house. None of those are refundable.

[exmember290323]

21 hours ago, Mike Todd said:

That must be considered a fairly modest charge in comparison with all the other checks/searches that have to be made when buying a house. None of those are refundable.

But why should there be an expectation from CRT to simply arrive, when its an opportunity for them to get money for something they haven't created in the first place.

[Mike Todd]

3 hours ago, perfectlydressed said:

But why should there be an expectation from CRT to simply arrive, when its an opportunity for them to get money for something they haven't created in the first place.

It is an unequal situation - CaRT in this instance hold all the strings. The best appeal you could do is to the media . . . plus the boater wants permission more than CaRT want the mooring.

[cuthound]

On 21/03/2023 at 16:30, Mike Todd said:

That must be considered a fairly modest charge in comparison with all the other checks/searches that have to be made when buying a house. None of those are refundable.

 

True, but if CRT grant a mooring application it provides the with an income stream for as long as a boat is moored there.