DEC Officer Report

PLANNING OFFICER REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION

Application No.: 23/00479/LAW Applicant: Coach House Boarding And Cattery Proposal: Certificate of Lawful Use for the running of a doggy day care business Site Address: The Coach House Bride Road Ramsey Isle Of Man IM8 3UN Planning Officer: Mr Peiran Shen Expected Decision Level: Officer Delegation Recommended Decision: Permitted Date of Recommendation: 21.07.2023

Conditions and Notes for Approval

C : Conditions for approval N : Notes attached to conditions C 1. There is sufficient evidence demonstrating that the change of use to dog day care business have been in situ since 2007. Plans/Drawings/Information;

This decision relates to the documents, photos, screenshots of facebook posts and affidavits date stamped as having been received on 14th April 2023; and location plan, site plan, floor plan which have been received on 20th July 2023.

_______________________________________________________________ Interested Person Status – Additional Persons

Not Applicable _____________________________________________________________________________

Officer’s Report

1.0 INTRODUCTION - 1.1 The application seeks a Certificate of Lawful Development in respect of the change of use to a dog day care business. The application seeking the Certificate of Lawfulness was submitted on 14th April 2023. This means the relevant 10 years for consideration is from 14th April 2013.

1.2 In accordance with the provisions of Schedule 4, Part 1, paragraph 3 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1999 ("the Act"), a development carried out in breach of planning control shall become immune from enforcement action after a certain period of time, provided that formal enforcement action has not already been taken. The relevant time periods are set out below:

• a) in respect of a breach of planning control consisting of the carrying out without planning approval of the building, engineering, mining or other operations in, on, over or under land, after the end of the period of 4 years beginning with the date on which the operations were substantially completed;
• b) in respect of a breach of planning control consisting of the change of use of any building to use as a single dwelling house, after the end of the period of 4 years beginning with the date of the breach;
• c) in respect of any other breach of planning control, after the end of the period of 10 years beginning with the date of the breach.

1.3 Section 24 of the Act makes provision for the submission and issuing of a Certificate of Lawfulness to establish the lawfulness of a breach of planning control. - 1.4 An application for a Certificate of Lawfulness is determined based on fact. Unlike an application for planning approval, it is not concerned with land-use planning considerations or the impacts of the development upon the public realm. - 1.5 The principal test is whether, on the balance of probabilities, the breach of planning control occurred in excess of ten years ago. If the Planning Authority has no evidence of its own to contradict that provided by the applicant, then provided if the applicant's evidence is sufficiently precise and unambiguous, a Certificate of Lawfulness may be issued. It is not usually necessary for the Planning Authority to corroborate the applicant's evidence.

2.0 The SITE - 2.1 The application site is the Coach House, Bride Road, Ramsey.

3.0 THE PROPOSAL - 3.1 The planning application seeks approval for the Certificate of Lawful Development for change of use to a dog day care business.

4.0 PLANNING HISTORY - 4.1 Erection of additional boarding kennels and food preparation area was REFUSED under PA 07/00764/B. The reason for refusal was: "In the interest of highway safety, the required visibility splays of 2 by 70 metres cannot be provided from the existing access and therefore are inadequate to serve the needs of the additional traffic generated from the development proposed." - 4.2 Conversion of outbuilding to two holiday units was REFUSED under PA 00/00466/B. - 4.3 Construction of dog boarding kennels was APPROVED under PA 88/00550/B. - 4.4 Extension to kennels to form cat-kennels was APPROVED under PA 88/04156/B. - 4.5 The two approvals above relate to the two existing buildings as the second and third most northern buildings on the site. However, it is difficult to tell whether these are the originally approved buildings as the shapes and location of the buildings are not an exact match to the current submitted plan.

5.0 REPRESENTATION - 5.1 Owners/Occupiers of 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9 Grand Island wrote in objection to the application (13.06.2023 - 16.06.2023). The comment mentions the impact of the kennel including noise,

increased traffic, highway safety risk due to location of the access, dog escaping and customers parking on the road, shortage of on-road parking, operating method of the business, long operating hours, lack of display of the yellow notice, increase of crime rate due to increase traffic.

6.0 ASSESSMENT / SUMMARY OF EVIDENCE PROVIDED - 6.1 The evidence provided are:

• o One affidavits from the two owners and one affidavit from a customer that the dog day care business has been operating since 2001.
• o Two affidavits from customers that the dog day care business has been operating since at least 2007 and one affidavit from a customer that the dog day care business has been
• operating since 2006

6.2 In terms of whether the change of use to a dog day care has been more than 10 years from the date of submission, the Department considers that it has. The affidavits have confirmed that the dog day care business has been in operation since at early as 2007. This is supported by the screenshots of facebook posts of the business. These evidences prove that dog day care has been in use for more than 10 consecutive years. - 6.3 Certificate of Lawfulness relates only to evidence and not material planning considerations. It does not require publication and therefore no "yellow notice" was issued or displayed. The comments submitted do not contain sufficient evidence to support any rebuttal to the affidavits so as mentioned in paragraph 1.5, the Department has no evidence that contradicts that provided by the applicant.

7.0 CONCLUSION - 7.1 On the balance of probabilities, the evidence demonstrates that the change of use to dog day care business have been in situ for more than 10 years. - 7.2 As such, the Department may not issue an enforcement notice due to the provisions of Town and Country Planning Act 1999 Schedule 4 Part 1 paragraph 3(a) and it is recommended that a Certificate of Lawful Development is granted.

8.0 RECOMMENDATION - 8.1 It is recommended that the application for a Certificate of Lawfulness is agreed.

9.0 INTERESTED PARTY STATUS - 9.1 As the application is for a CLD this is not required to be assessed. _____________________________________________________________________

I can confirm that this decision has been made by a Principal Planner in accordance with the authority afforded to that Officer by the appropriate DEFA Delegation and that in making this decision the Officer has agreed the recommendation in relation to who should be afforded Interested Person Status.

Decision Made : Permitted Date: 28.07.2023 Determining officer

Signed : C BALMER Chris Balmer Principal Planner

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