Good News for Middle Road
Posted
There was good news for most Middle Road residents at Tuesday’s meeting of the Parish Council.
It was announced that the long battle over the use (or misuse) of farm buildings at Grove Farm was finally over. The owner’s appeal against a refusal to allow a change of use to residential occupation has been lost.
For many years (since 1996!) the owner has rented out one of the buildings for residential use after converting it without planning permission. Following enforcement action by South Norfolk Council a planning application was sumitted in 2008. This was turned down early in 2009 and further enforcement action followed. Eventually, the owner appealed to the Planning Inspectorate.
A public enquiry was held last year and the inspector has now ruled in favour of the Council. Residential use must cease within six months.
As Middle Road residents know all too well, the planning system sometimes “grinds exceeding slow”, but it gets there in the end.