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Council escapes cost penalty after planning notice error over ‘erection’ terminology

This is how the entrance to the field, at Five Lanes, looked in April 2024 after the site was cleared and fencing put up (Pic: PEDW planning file)

A COUNCIL has been spared having to pay costs after using the wrong word for “erection” in a planning notice. 

Monmouthshire County Council had alleged Shannon Connolly had failed to gain planning permission for land where she keeps horses at Five Lanes, Caerwent. 

She submitted two appeals against the planning department and also asked that Planning and Environment Decisions Wales, which has granted her planning permission, order the council to cover her costs. 

Her appeal against the council’s enforcement notice, which set out what she needed to do to comply with planning rules, was dismissed after the inspector who considered it made a number of corrections. 

That included changing the word “provision” of sheds to “erection” in the notice the council had served on Ms Connolly alleging her use of the field and the addition of structures, including the sheds, a freight container, gates and the creation of a hard standing area was a breach of planning controls. 

Inspector H Davies clarified what was required of Ms Connolly and also ruled the freight container shouldn’t be considered a building and should be allowed to remain on site and more time should be allowed for the hard standing area to be returned to grassland. 

The inspector said “provision” isn’t listed in the planning legislation but Ms Connolly clearly understood what the council the notice related to. H Davies stated: “The breach would be more precisely worded if ‘provision’ were replaced with ‘erection’.” 

The inspector did allow the second appeal and granted the change of use of the land, from agricultural, to retrospectively allow Ms Connolly to keep horses there, build a stable block for five horses, a manege riding area and storage building. 

That application had been rejected by the council’s planning committee, in January this year, after councillors said they weren’t satisfied with the information provided, despite officers recommending it be approved. 

Though councillors, who also considered the application in October 2023, had refused permission the final decision had to be made by an inspector as Ms Connolly had already started an appeal as the council hadn’t determined the application in the required timeframe. 

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People making planning appeals are expected to cover their own costs but they can be awarded if there has been “unreasonable behaviour” and H Davies said that hadn’t been the case in how the council had considered the application, including the committee’s refusal to approve it, or the department’s imprecise wording of its planning notice. 

Ms Connolly has also been required to reduce the height of fences and gates at her field, which is beside a country road, and remove a sceptic tank as originally required by the council.

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