A WIDOW from Dorstone has been told that a rule requiring her house to be occupied by a farmer no longer applies.

The dormer bungalow Cwm Derw at Quarry Farm could only be occupied by someone working locally in agriculture or forestry, their dependants, widow or widower, according to the original 1986 planning permission.

The property is a detached ‘T’ shaped dwelling of a stone construction with tiled roof. The roof has a steep pitch with dormer windows to create living space in the roof. The property sits within a substantial curtilage.

However, a Mr and Mrs Handley had lived there, despite neither working on the land, since 1999, according to Mrs Handley’s application to Herefordshire Council, which sought a certificate of lawfulness confirming the condition could no longer be enforced.

Under planning law, this can be issued if the breach has continued for over ten years – but the burden of proof is on the applicant to show this.

The late Mr Handley had always worked as a carpenter, while Mrs Handley worked in floristry, but had mainly been a housewife, although the couple had kept Highland cattle ‘as a hobby’ and were ‘not real farmers’, her application said.

Planning officer Tracey Meachen has now agreed that the cattle have never been part of an agricultural business that rears cattle for the purposes of producing meat, milk or leather from the hide and said: “The hobby of the applicant’s in keeping some Highland cattle was sufficient to allow the applicant’s to reside at the property without being found to be in breach of the occupancy condition for a period of over 10 years.”

With no contrary evidence having been put forward, she concluded that the current, non-agricultural occupancy of the house “is lawful given that the time in which enforcement action could be taken has now expired”.