On 22nd January 2024 we applied to Worthing Borough Council Local Planning Authority (LPA) for a lawful development certificate (LDC). Our application was effectively an application to outline what we have done to the land since we purchased it, what we will do to the land and what we want to do with the land. Without a formal planning application.

Although a LDC application is not a planning application as such, it does share many of the same processes and characteristics. It is published on the council website and people are allowed to view the application and send in comments. If you click here you can view the application and comments. 

On the 18th of March 2024 our LDC application was refused completely.

The LPA had several choices. It could have accepted all of the application, accepted some of the application or refused all of the application. The LPA chose to refuse all of the application. The most notable comment was: 

‘a sandpit would comprise operational development’  By this mindset, up and down the land, anyone who puts a children’s sandpit in their garden needs planning permission. The person who wrote this report is currently the Head Of Planning (elect) at Worthing Borough Council.

In order to maintain our land, we also put in an application for a storage container to maintenance tools. We applied on 23rd March 2024 (click here) and on 28 March it was refused. If you look closely you can see this application has been padded out with objection letters from our other application, but if you look very closely you will see that it was refused in a ground breaking four working days. Ignoring the fact there are many storage contains all around our land, the most notable are the ones at the end of Goring Hall (run by the Ilex & Goring Conservation society) and outside the Sea Lane Café, our application did not touch the sides (metaphorically speaking). It was refused 5 days after application. A record by all accounts. It was also refused very conveniently on the same day (28 March) our alcohol licence was refused, we believe, in time so Sir Peter Bottomley (the local voyeuristic MP that likes to take sneaky pictures in council meetings) could put out a post on Facebook to say that all three of our applications, the sandpit, storage shed and alcohol licence were dead. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and waddles like a duck….

Our application is now with the Planning Inspectorate and we are currently awaiting a site visit and their impartial and unbiased adjudication.