DC Casebook: Leisure and entertainment - Parking at holiday let held commercial

Planning, 25 April 2008

The inspector remarked that there is no comprehensive definition of a dwellinghouse for the purposes of the General Permitted Development Order (GPDO) 1995 and that it is a concept of design and use. He noted that the house provided facilities for day-to-day private domestic existence and was let as a single unit, with no services provided by the letting agents. He had no reason to doubt that it continued to be a dwellinghouse for the purposes of the order.

He observed that the garden to the side of the house had been replaced with a stone-paved hardstanding to provide seven parking spaces, each accessed individually across the footway. He was not persuaded that the provision of the spaces was exclusively for the benefit of the residents of the house. He noted that holiday visitors did not control the parking spaces for the duration of their occupation and could not choose to use all or part of the area for sitting out or outdoor eating.

In his view, the appellant's aim appeared to have been to provide the maximum number of parking spaces on the basis that those not required in connection with letting the appeal property could be allocated to visitors at other holiday accommodation. He concluded that the parking area was a separate planning unit used for commercial purposes. It was not permitted development under class F, part 1, schedule 2 of the GPDO because the hardstanding ceased to be within the curtilage from the time of its provision, he determined.

In terms of the deemed applications, the inspector observed that the parking area lay in a prominent corner position in a tight-knit and largely residential part of the conservation area. He held that the parked vehicles were obtrusive in the street scene and found that the comings and goings of vehicles caused disturbance.

DCS Number 100-054-317

Inspector John Waldron; Inquiry.