Residential Developments

Planning Success Stories: 14 Farnham Way, Crofton, Wakefield

In December 2023, Vision Planning obtained a certificate of lawfulness for a client who had been using a building as a separate dwelling in breach of a condition.

The client had planning permission for “a detached dwelling to provide ancillary accommodation”, and the permission included a condition restricting the building’s use to “purposes ancillary to the residential use of” the main house at 14 Farnham Way.

Where the use of a building has changed to a new dwelling without planning permission, and this use has continued for at least 4 years, even in breach of a condition, the breach of planning controls becomes lawful. This means that the Council can’t enforce against it. (But please note that this is about to change to ten years.)

We worked with the applicant to gather sufficient evidence to convince the Council that the breach had occurred more than 4 years ago and had continued since, and we set this out in the application.

The Council agreed that the breach was now lawful, and issued the certificate of lawfulness.

However, that was not the end of the story, because in this situation the condition remains, so if the breach ends, the Council can enforce if the breach starts again.  That means the condition needs to be removed, and this is what we did in relation to 14 Farnham Way.

First, we got permission via a S96A non material amendment to remove the reference to “ancillary accommodation” from the development description, and then we got permission via a S73 application to remove the condition.

This means that the annex is now a separate dwelling, and the owner can rent it out or sell it separately from the main house, with no risk of planning enforcement.