A judge has ruled that country homeowners aren’t entitled to the peace and quiet a rural paradise would normally be expected to provide, in a row over a barn conversion.
Zoe Bucknell, a corporate lawyer, was told by a judge that she “is not automatically entitled to the maintenance of the same rural peace and quiet” as when she bought her £1.3 million property in 2014 after she tried to block a development near her farmhouse in Kent.
Mrs Bucknell clashed with Mark Stoneham, a game-shooting pedigree beef farmer, over his plans to convert a next-door barn into two houses while using her drive as access for heavy construction traffic.
The keen horse rider – with her own stables at home – said “noise disturbance, vibration [and] fumes” from traffic passing up the 55 metre driveway past her “quiet and secluded forever home” posed a threat not just to her peace but to the fabric of the driveway and her home.
She claimed her enjoyment of horse riding would be “adversely affected” because of increased traffic from the new houses when completed and that vibrations from building trucks could damage the foundations of her Grade-II listed home near Sevenoaks.
But Judge Paul Matthews has disagreed with this claim, saying she “is not automatically entitled to the maintenance of the same rural peace and quiet that she enjoyed when she bought in 2014”.
If you don’t own the land then you can’t decide what is – or is not – built upon it.
*cough*Fracking*/cough
Read this story. She does sound your typical NIMBY. The development is literally going on in her back yard. But, of course, she’s a recent arrival to the village. And she wants time to halt & everything to remain as when she moved there for all eternity.
I’ve lived in a place like this, out in Essex. And got to know some of the original locals. Drank with the local lord in his local. Your proper lord, used to go up to Westminster to claim his expenses when he bit short. His family have had “The Hall” since before the Tudors. Hosted Elizabeth 1 during one of her court perambulations. One of the farm families have had their farm since before that. They take their name from it. There’s another family can trace their ancestry back to before the Conquest. And also know something about the history. And its a history of perpetual change. Farming’s an industry, so it’s an industrial landscape. Buildings got torn down when they were no longer fit for purpose & new went up. The village high street has 4 pubs. It used to have 10. Almost every other building It was a coaching stop. So for a period, the entire village was centred around that activity. The actual locals don’t want it preserved in aspic. They want decent houses & jobs.
I note she keeps horses. No doubt the locals were quite happy to give up their horses when cars & vans appeared. And I don’t suppose she regrets imposing the the smell of them, their flies & piles of crap on those live around her.
*cough*Fracking*/cough
There was a vigorous anti-fracking movement where I had the Sussex house a while back. (Although the only way one could discern there was fracking going on was the presence of the protesters) Again almost entirely newbies & their supporters bussed in. Local people didn’t seem to give a damn.
Recall standing on the backdoor step when I was a kid, basking in the bucolic setting. Then one morning a gang of Irish navvies turned up and build the M6.
Slightly surprised to learn that there are any barns left for conversion in that neck of the woods.
In a market village near me the local petrol station has closed (middle of nowhere, charging 145p when Asda charged 120p). The natural use for this site would be half a dozen cheap houses for locals so they can keep working there and have somewhere to live. Of course, being in the middle of a national park, nothing will be allowed to be built there, so it will remain a derelict petrol station.
There must be a word for objecting on someone else’s behalf.
A planning application has gone in near me to open a quarry (magnesian limestone) – technically re-open it as it was last quarried pre-war.
One objector said it will detrimentally impact the local pub, and another that 120 HGV movements a day will harm the holiday cottage business about 500m away as people come for the quiet. Naturally the pub and the operator of the holiday cottage have not made a submission.
“Slightly surprised to learn that there are any barns left for conversion in that neck of the woods.”
Class Q developments. Previously you had to get full planning permission to convert farm buildings into dwellings, now there’s a statutory assumption in favour of development of farm buildings, making the whole process easier. This right was introduced nearly 10 years ago, and massively increased the amount of potential developments sites on farms, as virtually every farm could now qualify to turn its farm buildings into houses. There’s no requirement for them to be old, or redundant,even quite modern sheds have been converted. So there are still lots of farm yards that are used for agricultural purposes but that could become houses should the owner die, retire, or sell up.
“There must be a word for objecting on someone else’s behalf.”
How about a NITBY? Not In Their Back Yard.
Or perhaps NITWIT. Not In Their Whole Immediate Territory.
“If you don’t own the land then you can’t decide what is – or is not – built upon it.”
If you do own the land, you don’t get to decide either – it’s the pen-pushers in the Local Authority who decide. The joys of the planning system!
Going back to the OP, this is already a general point – you have no right to your view or your peace and quiet, loss of or impact on those is not a valid planning objection. Never has been iirc.
“There must be a word for objecting on someone else’s behalf.”
The Acronym you’re looking for is BANANA – “Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone”.
*At the same time* – why is construction machinery going up her drive? Is it the only access to the barn? If so, why didn’t that owner contact her and let her know – if not even get permission?
I own a field behind my home and if bulldozers just showed up in them one day because my neighbor figured that it was an easy access to that part of his fence, I’d be pissed too.
“Nicholas Isaac KC, for Mr Stoneham’s company Alchemy Estates (Holywell) Ltd, told Judge Paul Matthews that a right of way over Mrs Bucknell’s drive to the barns was granted “for all time and for all purposes” to Mr Stoneham’s father and uncle in 1972 and that he wanted to use that right to complete the build and provide access to the new houses.”
a right of way over Mrs Bucknell’s drive to the barns was granted “for all time and for all purposes” to Mr Stoneham’s father and uncle in 1972
Zoe’s going to have to have words with her conveyancing solicitor…
Found the planning application – there’s another existing dwelling further up the shared drive from whatsherface.
Jim – you’re right – the Tel story is slightly misleading, it’s not a barn “conversion”, but demolish and rebuild.
“both his father and his uncle.” That’s rural Kent for you.
“Mrs Bucknell clashed with Mark Stoneham . . .”
Potentially more damaging to her than losing an ill-advised court case. Even if she’d won he could have made life miserable for her. Thirty years ago in the countryside near me some city type bought a fairly grand house off a local. In city style he waited until she was financially exposed and then fucked around to shave a bit off the price. He won that but soon found himself surrounded by a pig farm.
This a classic case of what happens when old farmhouses get sold off separate to the buildings (and often the land too). You end up with people who have no idea about country life, who think because they’ve spent a fortune on their bit of the rural idyll that they then control everything within 500 yards of it. And who think that just because that field they look at has always had grass and sheep in it that it will be forever that way, and will never become a field of pigs or a field of chickens or even a field of more houses. You also end up with these sort of access issues because here’s usually one access point to the farm, and that ends up being utilised by a number of new dwellings, and maybe still the original farm land, and huge arguments ensue over who is causing damage and who is liable to repairs, mud and muck on the track etc etc. If you’re really ‘lucky’ you find that all the properties have been connected to one original water meter with submeters fitted and some poor bugger ends up having to pay the water company for all the water used and then get his money back from all the 3rd parties householders (I was such a meter holder…). And most of the people who buy these country properties are wealthy city types who because they have money think they can tell everyone what to do. Which is how you end up with stories of urban/rural strife like this:
https://metro.co.uk/2018/08/15/farmer-builds-30ft-wall-hay-annoy-neighbours-blocked-planning-permission-7844682/
Mrs M (a property solicitor in a former life) offers few words of legal advice, but one very strong adage is: never buy a house with a shared drive.
We bought a house in early 2020. Our bit of the driveway ends 4ft before the pavement and road over an unregistered strip. So our solicitor asks about access etc. Turns out there is local authority access and maintenance and long enough access we can come and go freely. Also none of our new neighbours didn’t have a clue about the risk.
We didn’t use a cheap online conveyancer though. Saving £500 on a £1,000,000 purchase seems a false economy somehow.
However, it has already been established that someone can move to an area and successfully object to something as being a nuisance even if it was there first. Here are some cases of church bells being silenced at night:
https://onthewight.com/church-bells-hourly-chimes-halted-complaint-one-resident/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-41312049
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-kent-42086315
jgh
“In a market village near me the local petrol station has closed (middle of nowhere, charging 145p when Asda charged 120p). The natural use for this site would be half a dozen cheap houses for locals so they can keep working there and have somewhere to live. Of course, being in the middle of a national park, nothing will be allowed to be built there, so it will remain a derelict petrol station.”
From what you’ve said in the past I think you’re in are near Whitby, aren’t you? In which case you’re probably referring to NYM National Park?
When we lived in Pickering in the late ‘60s and ‘70s they were quite good at allowing planning for local workers and even holiday cottages. Presumably in comers who claim to be environmentalists have taken the over and want to preserve it in aspic?
@BinD: Ah, Pickering…one of the nicest places I’ve ever lived in. I particularly remember a butcher who made the most wonderful pork pies. Hope he’s still there.
Peter,
15 years since I was last there, but if it was the one opposite the Bay Horse Google says it isn’t there now. A school friend worked there and was still there last time I visited.
My father was the landlord of The Lettered Board, which also seems to be on its way out.
Farmhouse? Normally a farmhouse is a house on a farm! A farm being something that is productive in the production of foodstuff. Of course, most farmers are giving up, accepting that it is not possible to make a return after the costs of government “regulation” are taken into account.