The appearance of a planning notice on a lamp column results in inevitable concern about what is coming next…
In Horndean by The Precinct an Orange planning notice has been posted highlighting all of the industrial estate including the BT exchange and businesses running down to Universal Cars and Horndean Tyres.
This however is a good news story…
Under ‘Permitted Development’ rules you are allowed to carry out certain activities without planning permission. This includes some types of extension, garage and so on. It also allows owners of commercial premises to convert them to residential without permission.
The employment sites we have locally provide local jobs and while we want to use brownfield land for housing we don’t want to do this by allowing successful businesses to be shut down to cash in on a land value.
To counter this we have put an ‘Article 4’ notice on the land that stops this happening without planning permission. There is nothing to stop the freeholder apply but while the land is designated as an employment site in the local plan it’ll be a big challenge. Hopefully these businesses will be protected and be with us for some time to come!
