Retrospective plans for changes at Northumberland farm

A retrospective bid to regularise a series of changes at a Northumberland farm has been lodged.
Shield Green Farm at Tritlington. Picture from GoogleShield Green Farm at Tritlington. Picture from Google
Shield Green Farm at Tritlington. Picture from Google

The application, for Shield Green Farm at Tritlington, seeks to change the use of three agricultural buildings into 11 office/storage units – seven in one building and two each in the others.

There have also been internal and external alterations, including the addition of roller shutter doors and unit fronts to the seven-unit building.

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The final element is to change the use of the yard and access for mixed agricultural/residential/business purposes.

Tritlington and West Chevington Parish Council has not objected, but submitted the following comments: ‘It has been noted that this application is of a retrospective nature in an attempt to regularise the years-long unregulated usage of the site over and above its historical agricultural base.

‘It is also regrettably noted that there is no mention of a new access and access road to the development off the C129 highway.’

And it is the access which has concerned neighbours, Mr & Mrs J Feather, whose objection says that since the mid 1990s, the county council ‘has adopted the principled and unwavering insistence on a new access to the site from the C129 thereby to permit additional usages over and above the agricultural operations of the Craigs family’.

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But a planning statement submitted on behalf of the applicant says that the access has served a farm, council depot (now in business use), agricultural production building (B1/B8) and a number of homes for many years.

It adds: ‘Acknowledging this to be the case, that reuse is being made of existing buildings and the legal rights of access which exist, the development is acceptable in access terms.’

Ben O'Connell, Local Democracy Reporting Service