Caravan Dwelling on a farmers land - Legal or not?

[melanie154]

My partner and I are living in a 40ft showmans mobile caravan on a small corner of an orchard and have been doing so for 3yrs. My boyfriend, for the last 9yrs has worked seasonally picking fruit for the farmer, supplying him with a group of pickers and we also act as security to a barn with tractors in. The farmer is happy to have us living here and has had no problems with people breaking into the barn or kids setting fires since we have been here. Unfortunatly we have just heard that we have been reported to the local parish council. So we are trying to get clued up on our rights. We have heard of lots of loop holes in the law that help people live alternatively - can anyone confirm if the following is correct. You can live as security or an employee on the farmers land in a caravan for 11months of the year with the farmers permission? Any advice would be welcome in regards to the council and laws - we love our life here and would be devestated if we were to be evicted, many thanks Melanie xx

[Androcles]

Here is a similar thread on another site with some useful info:

http://www.caravantal...g-living-in-a-static/

[Hawkwalk]

I dont know about the caravan but if your boyfriend is supplying labour to the farmer then he is classed as a gangmaster and needs to be registered with the gangmaster licencing authority. Just something you may want to check out if people are reporting you for stuff.

[buildersmate]

Androcles link appears to relate to static caravan owners having a pitch on a caravan site. Such caravan site owners will already have planning permission for the running of a caravan site of x pitches. Under that permission, the planning permission permits the owners to occupy the site under set conditions - and one of those is often a limit on the number of months in the year that the owner can reside there.

Your situation is entirely different - you are living on agricultural land with (presumably) no planning permission for a dwelling, temporary or permanant. Hardly surprising, then, that the local authority development control people are showing an interest.

The 'loophole' in the Town & Country Planning Acts that are referring to probably relates to agricultural occupancy. If a worker is engaged in agricultural or forestry work, and a planning application is made for a new dwelling or a temporary dwelling for that worker in the countryside, that application will not normally be denied. The dwelling ends up with an agricultural tie, which means it can only ever be occupied by something in agricultural or forestry work. This part of the law is simply to stop lots of people putting new houses up in the countryside - however it is accepted that houses of agricultural workers need to be near to their work.
To what extent you and your landlord can use that, I am really not sure - how does your boyfriend gain employment in the 9 months of the year he isn't picking fruit? I think the Planning Authority will take a pretty dim of it, if he is working elsewhere than on the land. I have never heard that agricultural occupancy extends to being 'security' on a farm - however it does extend to jobs looking after livestock.

[buildersmate]

A simple start would be for the farmer to make a temporary planning application for an agricultural worker in a caravan on his land - that might give him (and you) and couple of years. But I suspect the planning authority are taking action now because once a person has been living on a site unchalllenged for over 4 years in a dwelling that is unlawful, certain rights are afforded.
I'm afraid many people love the life in the countryside - me included. I had to pay a substantial six-figure sum for a tatty bungalow that I pulled down and redeveloped. That, I'm afraid, is the way it has to work, unless one is an agricultural worker.

[Androcles]

Hi Buildersmate,

I was interested in your differentiation between the link I found, because when I did a search on caravans on agricultural land, it came back to the link, contained in one of the entries on the site I found! The references to use on agricultural land appear very confusing, since it implies that they cannot be used for the purpose Melanie and her boyfriend are doing. They seem to have picked up some of the things I found on the static reference.... Very confusing!

However given the problems currently with largescale thefts of farm machinery, perhaps security might be a useful angle to try with the local authority?

[buildersmate]

It isn't in the gift of the Local Authority. The definition of someone employed in agriculture and forestry for the purposes of the Town and Country Planning Act is tied very closely to some definition in one of the Agricutural Wages Acts - can't remember which.
There was a question not so long ago on here from a guy employed by the Environment Agency to cut back trees from riverbanks and do other bank maintenance work - he knew about the agricultural workers loophole and I remember researching it for him and finding out that an 'osier' was one the allowed job types. An osier cuts willows from a riverbank.
At the end of the day' trying to live in a caravan on agricultural land is a no-no without seeking some regularisation of it via the planning system. Otherwise we'd all be at it and the green and pleasant land would not remain so. That unfortunately is the way planning policy works - try to keep development in the existing settled areas and the edges of those areas.

[gidian2000]

why do folk stick there noses into other folks business. they just wanted a simple life but some pratt just complicated it for them.