The Farmer's Planning Podcast

Navigating New Agricultural Planning Opportunities

• Guy French • Season 2 • Episode 6

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Unlock the potential lying dormant in your farm! We're your hosts, Guy and Mel from Foxes Rural, and in the latest instalment of the Farmers Planning Podcast, we're thrilled to spill the beans on the transformative legislative changes impacting agricultural planning. Imagine expanding your operations and diversifying like never before—all thanks to the recent shake-up in permitted development rights for new agricultural buildings. Mel, our savvy planning director, is here to guide you through the maze of new opportunities, from understanding the increased size limits for new structures to the eased restrictions on small extensions.

Get ready to explore the possibilities of converting your agricultural buildings into bustling commercial and residential spaces. Mel breaks down the intricate details of amended Class R and Class Q, revealing how you can now increase your commercial space by an incredible 50% and craft new dwelling options for residential conversions. We're keen to discuss how these changes might pave the way for a more prosperous future for your farming business. So, if you're eager to learn how these legislative updates can serve as a springboard for your agricultural endeavours, you won't want to miss a minute of this episode.

Speaker 1:

Hi, I'm Guy from Fox's Rural.

Speaker 2:

I'm Mel from Fox's Rural and we are bringing you Series 2 of the Farmers Planning Podcast.

Speaker 1:

We're both directors here at Fox's Rural and we've got lots of planning knowledge and updates for your farm. Hello and welcome back to the Farmers Planning Podcast. There's some exciting changes afoot, with changes to the permitted development legislation in respect of new agricultural buildings, the change of use of them under class r and also the change of use of them under class q for residential. I'm joined by our planning director, mel, on the podcast, who is going to set out those planning changes for you okay.

Speaker 2:

So the government released the new legislation, which we are, as you said, really excited about. There's lots of opportunities out here for farmers to extend their permitted development rights across the farm. As you've glossed upon part a, which is your prior notification for new agricultural buildings, the sizes have increased from a thousand square meters to 1500 meters squared, which is obviously a significant increase in size, which is great news for those farmers out there who've got multiple crops or are looking to expand into new areas of diversification of their cropping. Interestingly, they've added in an extra where, if you're seeking an extension to an existing building, if it is less than 10% of the original building, you do not need to seek prior approval. So, for example, if you had a building that is 800 square metres, you could seek an extension of 80 square metres for, for example, 80 square meters for, for example, spray storage or chemical storage or fertilizer storage, and you wouldn't necessarily need to go through the prior notification process for that.

Speaker 1:

You simply need to notify the council for completion of works so now tell me a bit more about the changes to class r, which is the change of use of agricultural buildings to commercial. What changes have happened there?

Speaker 2:

again, again, some really good opportunities for farmers for this. Class R allows you to change the use from agricultural to commercial uses and previously you could change your building to storage use, which is B8, or uses under Class E, which is more service industry. Crucially, they've made two significant changes which I think will benefit our clients, one of which is that the allowance of space has increased from 500 meters squared to a thousand, which is more comparable to more modern day buildings. So that's really good news, and extra commercial space obviously means extra income. And, importantly as well, they've extended the uses to allow b2 use, so it widening the potential tenants that you can have within that building, really widening the net of the tenants you can have in your building without impacting other people so there's been some significant changes in respect of class r, so effectively, you are able to achieve permission for up to 50% more commercial space.

Speaker 1:

You can avoid things like the new biodiversity net gain, what's called BNG, which is now applying to all planning applications, and these changes come in with effect from the 21st of May. So, mel, tell me a bit more about class Q, the well-known agricultural to residential permitted development, right? What are the changes that's happened here?

Speaker 2:

because I see these as being the most fundamental and opportunistic changes for farmers on their farms yes, again, there's been significant changes to the class q legislation which are going to make a big difference in the applications, as you've alluded to. If an agricultural building was in use on July, the 24th 2023, you can now apply to change the use to underpass Q2, a residential. Other significant changes are the fact that more houses can now be made, and this is the reason why they've done it. What they want to do is to bring more buildings into residential use that wouldn't previously comply. You can now build up to 10 dwellings. Now the maximum sizes have changed, though, so the maximum size of a building can now be 150 metres squared, but if you're going for 10 dwellings, that would be a maximum of 100 metres squared for each dwelling.

Speaker 2:

Other notes to take from this are extensions to the rear are now allowed. This has never been previously allowed. As long as it's caveated as normal, it's onto hard standing that was behind the building. It can only be to the rear, and the hard standing had to be present before 2023. Other interesting pieces within it are you're allowed protrusions of up to 0.2 meters. This has previously been an absolute headache for lots of developers, so if you wanted to put a window in and it protruded above the existing skin, it previously would have been non-compliant. Now you're allowed to do things like that, where a protrusion can be up to 0.2 and external walls can now be added as well as part of the conversion, which is big news for those buildings which may be open-sided on one side yes, because under class q it was always questionable, wasn't it, as to whether or not, um, something like asbestos cladding could be replaced with more modern, suitable housing material, which of course, is what's needed.

Speaker 2:

But planners would quite often use that as a reason to throw a refusal at a class queue, which just seemed ridiculous I think this legislation will make a lot more buildings more suitable for conversion, and also another interesting fact is that they have taken away the previous use of being solely agricultural. The legislation reads like as long as the building is within the agricultural unit, it would still be compliant whether or not maybe there was gym equipment in it or something. These changes are going to make significant impact on farmers, particularly. You know, as at the moment the weather is making big impacts on farming generally, so looking for other streams of income will be significant in people's minds at the moment.

Speaker 1:

Thanks, mel. That's all really interesting. I mean the biggest takeaways from this is that new agricultural buildings can be built up to 1500 square meters using permitted development legislation. Now, on farms Class R the change of use of agriculture to commercial you can achieve up to 50% more space. So from 500 square meters to a thousand square meters, we at Fox's Rural also know how to achieve commercial extensions for your existing buildings, and other changes under the permitted development legislation are class Q, which will permit you to have up to 10 dwellings.

Speaker 1:

Now, mel, this feels like a whole new, different podcast topic altogether, and it is a very contentious topic for us at Fox's Rural, and that is biodiversity net gain. This is an important update for farmers because we have recently been affected by these government changes. We have a statutory requirement now, with all full planning applications, to submit biodiversity net gain reports and implementation plan as well, which means that that biodiversity gain needs to be there for up to 30 years. It's literally a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Mel, tell us a little bit more about this and the headache it's causing for us as planners on farms.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so, as you've alluded to, the government introduced these changes to increase biodiversity net gain, to offset development generally. Any development over 25 square metres will now require biodiversity net gain information to support the application. Ultimately, what this means is that the area that is being developed will need to be assessed and measured, and the biodiversity within it by which means it could be the plants, the hedging, the ditching species there will need to be counted, calculated and measured. And then the next step is that you need to take that into account, increase it by 10 percent and put new biodiversity gains within the area and to offset that loss. As you've mentioned, this is making planning applications more expensive. You're having to use the use of consultants and additional plans to accompany the application now that just seems ridiculous, doesn't it?

Speaker 1:

it's not just a case of planting a few trees. We're all for landscaping, incorporating the development into, you know, the wider farmstead, as are most farmers. But when it comes to this biodiversity net gain, the cost it has added to planning applications is significant and it's making some planning applications unviable. Government are meant to be introducing a streamlined planning process for farmers and yet here we are all planning applications now being captured by something called biodiversity net gain, which was meant for large residential schemes, not small farm related schemes, of which there's a lot of permitted development. So thanks everyone for joining us on the Farmers Planning Podcast. We hope that these updates are useful to you. We will keep you updated with progress as these permitted development changes unfold, so keep listening and look out for the next episode soon. Thank you,