Beechwood Court
In Farnham Royal, our client owns a large site with a variety of buildings and uses on the site, but it is located within the green belt. One of the buildings was an office building that our client wanted to extend. However, national and local policy indicate that such development would be inappropriate development within the green belt.
Having considered the needs of our client and the character of the building, which had been built around a large enclosed courtyard, we were able to advise that it should be possible to infill the courtyard, creating a roof over it, without the requirement to submit a planning application. Section 55 of the Planning Act sets out what constitutes development, noting that improvement or other alteration of any buildings involving works that affect only the interior of the building, or do not materially affect the external appearance of the building do not involve development.
In order to provide our client with the certainty that he required we submitted a Certificate of Lawful Proposed Development to the Council, who confirmed that the infilling of the courtyard did not require planning permission and consequently our client was able to increase the internal floor area of the building by 320sqm.