A LOCAL man is celebrating after seeing off council efforts to remove him from his mobile home which sits in a rural farmland setting.

Herefordshire Council issued an enforcement notice in April last year demanding Phil Johnson vacate the mobile caravan at The Old Dairy, in Walford, where he has lived since 2020, whilst renovating the old building, within six months of the notice being issued.

Mr Johnson appealed against the notice to the Government’s planning inspectorate.

The council originally told the planning inspector that Mr Johnson had failed to demonstrate that there is a need for the mobile home to accommodate a residential presence in an unsustainable countryside location.

But after taking views of both Mr Johnson and the local authority, planning inspector Chris Preston has now quashed the enforcement notice.

Mr Preston stated that the issue came down to the change of use of the spot to a ‘caravan site’ in planning terms – which being on land “on which building or engineering operations are being carried out” would not require permission.

But this understanding was strained by the length of time the work had gone on, following the granting of permission to convert the former dairy in 2018.

Mr Johnson told the planning inspector that he had purchased one of the two parcels of land belonging to Chadwyns Farm and explained that it came with planning permission to convert the old dairy into a single dwelling.

He added: “This is my only residence, and I am completing a self-build to convert the property, but due to financial constraints, I have to do all the work myself, with the exception of roof trusses.”

The owner of Chadwyns Farm told the inspector: “Being Mr Johnson’s only immediate neighbour we have always been completely supportive of the project that he has undertaken.

“We understand that unforeseen delays in the renovation work to the old dairy has led him remaining in temporary accommodation for longer than anticipated. However, the siting of the mobile home causes us no inconvenience whatsoever.

“We remain very impressed with the single-handed dedication he has shown to the project, which has made really good progress recently.”

Mr Preston explained: “The gist of the council’s case is that insufficient progress on the work has been made to demonstrate that the occupation of the caravan could reasonably be said to be associated with the implementation of the permission between the stationing of the caravan in 2020 and the issuing of the notice in 2024.

“Four years had passed, which by any measure represents slow progress.”

The planning inspector observed that Mr Johnson appeared to be carrying out the work almost entirely by himself, learning skills as he goes along and concluded that he’d not been idle.

The planning inspector said there was no limit in law to the amount of time a mobile caravan can be stationed for this purpose

However, Mr Johnson was warned that this situation only applied so long as he remains employed in construction work associated with the planning permission.