This application 'to regularise and retain an agricultural access track' that had never existed followed on from the previously withdrawn1592/22/FUL and 3801/21/AGR to establish whether prior approval was required for a proposed agricultural storage building on the site.

The latter application, we had argued, had been incorrectly determined while the former had only been withdrawn after officers had informed the applicant it was likely to be refused.

By the time this latest application was submitted planning officers had accepted that, contrary to the applicant's original claims, there had never previously been an existing track on the site. Even so the applicants were still repeating a number of their previously erroneous statements. Their accompanying ecological statement also made it clear that during construction of the track 'hedgerows should be protected from accidental damage by a 2 metre protection zone'.

Needless to say, by the time the ecological survey was undertaken, the track had already been constructed with no protection zone in place.

Again we urged officers to refuse the application, but again before a decision notice could be issued, the application was withdrawn.

Since then the Society has continued to spend many hours struggling to ensure the Council's Enforcement Team honour their commitment that the track should be removed and the land restored to its original condition. The full story – The never ending saga of Butterford, can be found on page 17 of our January 2024 Newsletter, a copy of which you can download here.

An Enforcement Notice was eventually issued on 08 February 2024, requiring the applicant to remove all of the rubble/hardcore and stone piles from the land and to scrape the soil back over the line of the unauthorised track to ensure the levels of the field are returned it to their original levels and sloping nature.

An appeal against the Enforcement Notice has since been lodged with the Planning Inspectorate.