Mucky approval as East Devon mud kitchen wins planning appeal

A mud kitchen at an East Devon farm shop is to stay in place after a successful planning appeal.

Greendale Farm Shop, near Farringdon, outside Exeter, had put in for retrospective planning permission for a timber building being used as a mud kitchen and play area by Mud Ventures, but was refused by East Devon planners.
Now, though, it has been given the blessing of the government’s Planning Inspectorate, which has overturned the council’s decision and allowed the appeal.
Paris Richards, the founder of the family-run business said she didn’t have much direct involvement with the planning process but is relieved at the result.
“I’m so, so pleased with the outcome as it means we can continue to run our business and hopefully the business can keep growing,” she said.
“We run sessions each day whereby parents can come with their children and participate in the activities I have set out.
“Prior to this, I worked in early years after leaving school at different nurseries and schools. This is our first outdoor stay and play, and we’ll have been open for two years in September.”
Ms Richards said the business is truly a family affair, with husband James building some of the play equipment, and her five-year-old daughter and two-year-old son testing it out.
East Devon District Council’s planning committee had refused permission to allow the building to remain because the site is outside the area that development is usually permitted.
It suggested the location was “remote from villages and towns” within the district meaning people were most likely to access it via private car, something that would be “in conflict with policies… which seek to encourage sustainable modes of transport”.
And the council said the “environmental harm” was considered to “outweigh the social benefits that would be derived from the provision of a permanent building for use as a children’s mud kitchen”.
It felt there was an “absence of a robust justification and evidence of need”, making it an “unjust form of development”.
While the planning inspector agreed the building is in a rural location “which prohibits new development” and was therefore “unacceptable in principle”, it noted that planning benefits could outweigh any planning harm.
The inspector, B J Sims, stated that because of its timber construction, and its siting amid the Greendale Farm Shop boundary and proximity to the NHS vaccination centre and Greendale Business Park, the visual impact was “minimal and results only in slight conflict” with the council’s planning policies.
Furthermore, the inspector felt most people who would use the mud kitchen facility would already be going to Greendale Farm Shop for its other services.
“It appears unlikely, in any event, that customers would journey to the site purely to avail themselves of the Mud Ventures building,” he said.
“Accordingly, I see no significant prospect that the proposed retention of the Mud Ventures building would generate additional traffic to and from the farm shop.”
The inspector added that some planning conditions would be required, but that these would mean any adverse impact from the building remaining could be outweighed by its benefit, that being the potential boost to the local economy.
“In my overall judgement however, the identified material planning benefit in this case carries sufficiently greater weight than the planning harm and overrides any conflict with the development plan as a whole,” the inspector added.