THE owners of a farm cottage in Longhope are the latest in the county to seek to remove its agricultural occupancy condition.

But the basis of their claim is unusual. Permission to build the two-storey First House in Barrel Lane, in the Herefordshire section of the village, was granted to a Mr Simpson in 1976 on condition it was inhabited only by someone working in farming or forestry, their dependants, widow or widower.

But though described in the original permission as a ‘farm bungalow’, the house was not built in accordance with the approved plans, as it “cannot reasonably be described as a bungalow”, according to the application for a certificate of lawfulness by brothers R and J Simpson.

Nor did their father build it at the prescribed spot, and it deviates from the approved scheme in a number of other ways too, they explain.

Rather than being made on the customary basis of the occupants’ lack of involvement in farming, their application is being made on the basis that the development was undertaken without the benefit of planning permission, and that therefore there is no condition or limitation that it breached, it explains.

Given the time that it has since been used as a dwelling, a certificate of lawfulness “should be granted for the dwellinghouse without an agricultural or forestry occupancy condition”, it states.

Other recent claimants over the past year include a widow from Dorstone being told that a rule requiring her house to be occupied by a farmer no longer applies.

And the owner of a farm cottage at Trehumfrey Farm in Llangarron has also been told the requirement for the property to house a farmer has been dropped as the agricultural occupancy condition had been breached for over 10 years.

Comments on the Longhope application, number 253371, can be made via Herefordshire Council’s planning portal until January 20.