... if you are going to include someone else's land in your planning application, is to tell them. More than decent, it's the law. Under Article 13 of The Town and Country Planning Order 2015:
an applicant for planning permission must give requisite notice of the application to any person (other than the applicant) who on the prescribed date is an owner of the land to which the application relates...
Furthermore, the planning application itself must include a certificate showing "owners of any part of the land to which the application relates". Again, it’s the law:
Aggregate Industries has not complied with this. The land to the right of Birdcage Lane, "corner tree to be removed to enable widening" in the photograph above, is owned by a third party. This was confirmed to AI last year. Despite that, the third party was not named on the ownership certificate, and received no notice of the company's planning application for Straitgate Farm.
The land AI requires was purchased over 20 years ago by the current owners; the sales particulars read:
As we posted in You really couldn't make this up, this land is critical for AI's plans:
The widening of Birdcage Lane at Straitgate will provide a safe means of accessing the B3174 Exeter Road... 5.4.10
Birdcage Lane will be widened adjacent to the site access to accommodate turning and travelling vehicles. Birdcage Lane will be widened to 6.5 metres to allow a vehicle to enter the lane from Exeter Road whilst a vehicle is waiting to leave to Exeter Road and to allow vehicles to pass. 7.8
AI is telling DCC that it owns the tree and hedge. The claim is of course utterly absurd, but it shows how desperate the company has become. It wasn't much over a year ago that AI was claiming something similar for another piece of land:
The applicant contends that it has necessary rights over the surface to implement the proposals as presented 8.78But it didn't, and look how that turned out.
