Scrap must be moved

A planning inspector has ruled there is not enough evidence to establish a legal use of a site in Balderton as a scrap yard.

Mrs Bridget Campbell dismissed an appeal against enforcement notices issued by Nottinghamshire County Council over a breach of planning control at Twitch Farm, Hollowdyke Lane.

The breach relates to the storage and dismantling of vehicles at the site, beside the A1, that has been home to a Lightning jet since October, 1983.

The decision means the site owner, Mr Tommy Flattery, will have to comply with the enforcement notice and remove all the scrap vehicles and parts and portable buildings.

Mrs Campbell also heard two other appeals into an application for a certificate of lawful use. She ruled that a certificate should be issued for a building on the site but not for anything else.

The appeals were brought by Mr Flattery and Japanese Parts Centre Ltd.

Mr Flattery told the inquiry that the area was used as a scrap yard before 1964 so there was an established lawful use.

The county council said the continuity of use needed to establish its legality had not been demonstrated.

Mrs Campbell said that normally ten years of continuous use was necessary to establish lawful use but because of the dispute about the continuity it was necessary to look back in time.

She said the evidence presented showed that the site had initially formed part of a larger agricultural holding.

The inquiry was told that an area about the size of a tennis court was used for scrap and an aerial photograph from 1974 showed an assortment of items scattered between and around farm buildings.

She said there was no evidence that the scrap yard was confined to any one area, but rather that it seemed to have been put between the farm buildings and overflowed into a surrounding field.

Mrs Campbell said even if it could be shown that, since 1963, its single primary use was as a scrap yard the storage or parking of vehicles other than scrap would have brought about a material change in use so the established use would have been lost.

Mrs Campbell said photographs taken of the Lightning showed the site to be empty other than for the plane and frame building.

“From the contemporary documents, photographs and records I find insufficient evidence to indicate on the balance of probability that an active scrap yard use with storage dismantling and retail elements was carried out on the site for a continuous ten-year period between 1992 and the dates of the enforcement notices,” she said.

“On the contrary the evidence suggests a largely vacant and neglected site open to trespass and vandalism from the mid-1990s onwards with no active use taking place.”

She said residents who had known the site for years had written to say it had always been a scrap yard.

But she said there had also been representations from others and from Balderton and Fernwood parish councils saying that in recent years the site had not been used in the manner claimed.