Test Valley Borough Council: Dan Wilden is please to have secured full planning permission for a campsite at a field outside of Stockbridge in Hampshire.
The campsite is already running as a certified site but our client wanted to obtain a full permission to provide more certainty and flexibility. The application was originally submitted around a year ago. We successfully worked through various issues with the planning officer and got to the point where they were happy to grant approval. Unfortunately on the day we were expecting to receive the approval, the planners informed us that they would now need us to demonstrate nutrient neutrality with regards the impact of nitrates ending up in the Solent.
Fortunately the land was last used for dairy cows which generates high levels of nitrogen to offset against the new land use. The difficulty however was that the campsite is to use compost toilets and there is no blueprint as to how these can be calculated in terms of nitrate generation. After several months of back and forth the planners agreed that they could be sufficiently secure that the new use would not increase nitrate levels compared to the previous one and on that basis approved the application.
If you have been considering opening a campsite on your land speak to Pure Town Planning for advice – beware that increasingly even permitted development campsites (temporary 28-day “pop-up” sites or certified organisation sites) can require consent under the Habitat Regulations.