Planning permission Field 494 La Rue des Buttes, St Martin (FOI)

Original Request

Please provide information on Field 494 La Rue des Buttes, St Martin which received planning approval under P/2016/009 to grant permission to develop land under article 19 of the Planning and Building (JERSEY) Law 2002.

The granting of approval was considered to be one which could only be undertaken in the countryside and an appropriate example of agricultural diversification:

(1) Under the Planning conditions " the development to which this permission relates will need to be considered in light of any material change in circumstances."

(1a) this Field 494 for which permission and specific personal use was granted has now ceased, no racehorse training or activity has taken place for nearly 12 months on this field apart from 4 horses occasionally grazing and the parking of horse boxes and vehicles, these 4 horses at livery are from the two fields across the road on which the owner of field 494 has subsequently sold off to a third party... contrary to the permission of the 3 site / fields under planning application number P/2016/0009.

3. of the planning permit categorically states ..

Other than the waste storage skip required for the collection of waste arising from the stables, no external storage of materials of materials, vehicles, equipment, waste, goods and / or other products shall take place on the site and

(8) in the event that the structures hereby approved fall into a state of disuse they shall be removed from the site and the land restored to its former state within 12 months.

A

Please advise how this permitted approval for Field 494 allows the selling off of two fields to a third party for private equine stabling and use?

B

Please advise in these two fields now owned by a third party is allowed under the permit for Field 494 store machinery, equipment, vehicles and a boat alongside the road for all passers-by to see?

C

Now that the planning permission has been breached through the non-use of the permission relating to racehorse training and stabling and so on, what action has the Planning Department taken to regularise and return the Field 494 and its adjoining fields now owned by a third party, back to fully agricultural as it was prior to its current activity?

Original Response

A

There is no control over the sale of fields to third parties and any existing applications will remain linked to the land and the planning applicant.

Planning condition does not control the sale of the land.

Agricultural Land (Control of Sales and Leases) (Jersey) Law 1974 (jerseylaw.je)

B and C

The requested information is not held by the planning compliance team; therefore, Article 10 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law applies.

The planning compliance team can be contacted on Enforcement@gov.je to determine whether an investigation is required in relation to this site to enable them to establish what items are being stored and whether they are compliant with the current conditions.

Article applied

Article 10 - Obligation of scheduled public authority to confirm or deny holding information

(1) Subject to paragraph (2), if –

(a) a person makes a request for information to a scheduled public authority; and

(b) the authority does not hold the information, it must inform the applicant accordingly.

Internal Review Request

I am not satisfied with your response to my above request in particular to my questions 2 and 3 they have not been answered. Please advise why they have not.

Internal Review Response

This review has been completed by a senior Government of Jersey officer, independent of the original decision-making process.

The requested information is not data held since an investigation would need to be carried out by the compliance team to determine the current use of this site and whether any breaches have occurred.

Therefore, following completion of their review, it is considered that the application of Article 10 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 in the original response be upheld.

It is also considered that the appropriate guidance regarding how to contact the planning compliance team to notify them regarding any issues that should be investigated was previously provided.