Mary Reid

At the end of Clayton Road, just before you get to the bridge over the A3, here is a large area known collectively as Five Acre Farm.

The fields that made up the original farm have now been broken down into several properties. Some of these have been developed unlawfully. Look at the what's going on next to the A3 in this Google photo.

The whole area beyond Oaklands Close lies within the Green Belt, so owners are only allowed to use the land for a limited range of purposes, mainly agricultural or appropriate leisure uses. In some of these cases, a house may be permitted to support the use.

Some of the businesses in the Five Acre Farm area, such as the Equestrian Centre, are acceptable, but other owners have been running commercial and industrial businesses from the land.

The Enforcement team at the Council have been working on a number of these violations for some time, and at last week's Neighbourhood Committee we dealt with some of them.

Anyone living near the area will know that Clayton Road Nursery, which is part of the Five Acre area, has been selling cars since the summer. The cars don't show up on the aerial photo, which must have been taken earlier.

Discussions with the owner have not made a difference, so we have decided to issue an enforcement notice. This gives the owner one month to remove the cars and two months to remove other planning violations such as the gates. The bungalow was given planning permission dependent on the site being used as a nursery, so it will also have to be demolished in 12 months if the site does not revert to an acceptable use (which could include being used as a livery stable)

The Nursery will probably appeal against this decision, so the cars are unlikely to disappear immediately, but we have now got the process started.