Moorlands Patchacott EX21 5AW Data via plota.co.uk

0640/26/CLE - Certificate of Lawfulness for Existing Use Approved

Proposal

Certificate of lawfulness for existing change of use of land from agriculture to the construction and use of the site as a menage (sand school) for private equestrian use Data via plota.co.uk

Track application Save this application and get an email when its status or decision changes. Alerts nearby Get email alerts for new planning applications near this address.

View original council record ↗Last checked 8 Sept 2026, 16:57

Application progress

✓

Received

9 Mar 2026

✓

Validated

27 Mar 2026

✓

Approved

18 May 2026

Approved on 18 May 2026 · Last checked 8 Sept 2026

Documents

View the documents on the council's website ↗

Site constraints 5

Agricultural land, grade 5

Very poor quality farmland, not best and most versatile. Source: the Predictive Agricultural Land Classification Map (Defra and Natural England, 2025; the Welsh Government's Predictive ALC Map 2 in Wales), a model rather than a site survey. Natural England's Provisional ALC map (1:250,000, 1970s), which most planning maps still show, had this area as grade 4. The predicted grade is Defra's current estimate; only a site survey settles it.

Where development of farmland is needed, policy prefers poorer land over the best and most versatile (grades 1, 2 and 3a). Three sources: Natural England's post-1988 field surveys, which are definitive where they exist; the Defra predictive map for England (2025) and the Welsh Government predictive map, modelled from the soil map with 3a and 3b split; and the 1970s provisional map, which planners and other services still show, coarser and with grade 3 undivided. Where the provisional and predicted grades disagree, treat the predicted grade as the current estimate and expect an application to carry its own survey.

Habitat network: Network Enhancement Zone 1

Where habitat is joined up enough to work as a network. Context, not a constraint on its own.

Radon affected area, class 5

An estimated 10 to 30% of homes reach the radon action level. Indicative for the 1 km square, which takes the highest class found in it; a radon test gives the answer for a building.

From the British Geological Survey and UK Health Security Agency indicative atlas. Under building regulations, as the BRE guide BR 211 (2023) sets out, new buildings and extensions need basic radon protection from class 3 in England and Wales and from class 2 in Scotland, and full protection from class 5. The class at the site itself, from the detailed BGS map, decides which.

UKHSA radon ↗

Also on the record

Nature improvement area: Northern Devon; Priority habitat about 24 m away: Deciduous woodland.

Not affected

Outside flood zones 2 and 3 · Not green belt · No scheduled monument at the site

Checked on 6 October 2026. The pin for this application is the centre of its postcode rather than the building, so distances to nearby designations are measured from the postcode and can be out by the width of the postcode area. Historic England, the Environment Agency, Natural England, the British Geological Survey and UK Health Security Agency (radon, contains BGS materials © UKRI) and council datasets, Open Government Licence. A boundary can run through a site and the council holds the definitive record: confirm with the council before relying on this.