A Class Q appeal over a Derbyshire barn conversion has been dismissed despite an Inspector accepting that its holding was probably in agricultural use on 24th July 2023. The decision, issued on 23rd October 2026, concerns Croft Farm at Stonedge, near Ashover and Chesterfield.
Inspector K Mee rejected the proposed change of a farm building into a single home because the available evidence did not establish the longer agricultural history required by the General Permitted Development Order (GPDO). Earlier recreational horse riding complicated the position, even though the present use appeared predominantly agricultural.
I think this Class Q appeal deserves attention because it distinguishes two questions that are easily confused: whether land looks agricultural on the qualifying date, and whether it meets the separate legal definition of an established agricultural unit. A favourable finding on the first does not automatically answer the second.
Why the Class Q appeal was brought
Mr Ben Carr appealed North East Derbyshire District Council’s refusal of prior approval under application 26/00230/CUPDMB. The proposal involved changing a relatively modern barn to a single dwelling. The building sits on an enclosed part of a wider holding said to extend to about 3.48 hectares.
A separate stone building on the wider holding had previously secured prior approval for residential conversion in 2015. The applicant relied partly on that history, but the Inspector had limited information about the evidence used for the earlier determination. It could not establish the current scheme’s eligibility by itself.
The more awkward point was that the barn had originally obtained permission in 2010 for a mixed agricultural and equestrian use. That was not conclusive proof of its later use, but it gave the Inspector a reason to investigate recreational horse activity rather than treat the holding’s farming description as the whole story.
For the wider rules on qualifying barns and prior approval, see our Class Q conversion guide. It explains the eligibility tests separately from the works that may be undertaken to turn a qualifying building into a home.
Two agricultural dates matter, not just one
The Class Q appeal turned on Q.1(a)(i) and the definition of an established agricultural unit in paragraph X of Schedule 2, Part 3 of the GPDO. The relevant site must have formed part of such a unit on 24th July 2023, under the limb of the rule considered in this appeal.
Paragraph X applies a different, underlying test. In broad terms, it defines an established agricultural unit by reference to agricultural land occupied as a unit on or before 20th March 2013 or for at least ten years before development begins. Those are not interchangeable requirements. A field can be agricultural in 2023 without the evidence demonstrating the requisite status of the unit over the earlier period.
This is why the agricultural unit and its actual occupation matter as much as the barn itself. An applicant needs a credible account of the land’s use over time, supported where possible by records and the history of the wider holding, rather than evidence describing only a recent snapshot.
What the Inspector accepted about farming and horses
The applicant produced a signed statement from a nearby landowner who had helped manage the wider holding for more than 15 years. According to that statement, the land had principally been farmed and two horses on it had not been ridden for about seven years. The horses grazed on an area said to comprise roughly 1.32 hectares.
Supporting material included veterinary correspondence concerning a horse called Finch from December 2018, aerial images and photographs of the barn and its lean-to storing agricultural equipment and hay. The evidence also described mowing, manure spreading, hay cropping and baling. On visiting the site, the Inspector saw hay in the barn and did not find the sorts of stables, riding areas or jumps ordinarily associated with active equestrian use.
That evidence carried real weight. Inspector Mee considered it more likely than not that the barn and wider holding had been in agricultural use on 24th July 2023. In other words, the council did not win simply by pointing to horses in a field. The existence of horses, and their grazing, did not automatically establish an equestrian planning use.
Our guidance on agricultural and equestrian land explains why grazing, riding and the primary use of a holding must be assessed on their actual facts. A Class Q appeal involving horses calls for that distinction, not an assumption that every paddock is recreational.
Why the historic equestrian use still defeated the appeal
There was a second side to the evidence. The 2010 consent had been for mixed agricultural and equestrian use, recreational riding had taken place on the wider holding until around seven years before the appeal, and at least one horse had been rehomed there around 2018 for recreational riding. The extent and timing of this activity mattered to the earlier-period test.
The Inspector was also unconvinced that Rural Payments Agency registration established the same facts as the GPDO’s definition. Nor did the 2015 approval for another building resolve the evidence gap. Against that background, Inspector Mee said he was “not satisfied that it is demonstrated the appeal site has been part of an established agricultural unit”.
The Class Q appeal therefore failed because the appellant had not adequately established compliance with the statutory qualifying tests, not because the Inspector concluded that the whole farm was currently an equestrian establishment. He recognised agricultural activity in 2023 while remaining unconvinced about the required status and history of the unit.
That distinction is important in practical advice. Mixed use in an earlier period may create an evidential obstacle, but this decision does not say that one past horse-riding incident permanently removes every agricultural right. The question remains what the occupied planning unit actually was, and whether a particular statutory test is proved on the balance of probabilities.
The conversion works were not decided
North East Derbyshire had also questioned whether the proposed building operations amounted to a genuine conversion of the existing barn. The Inspector did not resolve that dispute. Having found that the site failed to demonstrate compliance with Q.1(a), he considered it unnecessary to decide the separate question under Q.1(j).
Paragraph W(3) allows a council to refuse prior approval where the development does not comply with a relevant restriction, or the information supplied is insufficient to establish that it complies. The Class Q appeal illustrates how that threshold works. A convincing structural scheme cannot rescue an application that has not first demonstrated entitlement to use the permitted development right.
Conversely, this dismissal must not be read as a finding that the barn could never be converted physically. The Inspector simply did not reach that issue. Any revised Class Q proposal would need to establish both the qualifying land history and the permitted nature of the conversion works, if that route remains available on the facts.
What barn owners and advisers should take from this
I would start a Class Q appraisal with a timeline of the entire holding, not just photographs of the candidate building. Earlier permissions, the dates and purposes of horse keeping, whether riding or training occurred, crop and livestock records, tenancy or occupation details, aerial photographs and statements from people who actually worked the land can all help explain the unit’s history.
That evidence also needs to deal with unfavourable records directly. If an earlier permission expressly refers to equestrian use, explain what happened afterwards, when any activities stopped and how the land was occupied in the relevant periods. A current barn filled with hay is helpful, but does not by itself prove the GPDO’s historical definition.
This Class Q appeal is a fact-specific Inspector’s decision rather than a court judgment or a binding new rule. Its wider lesson is straightforward: separate the recent agricultural-use test from the longer definition of an established agricultural unit, and do not let evidence about one substitute for evidence about the other.
Read the official Planning Inspectorate decision, reference 6012903, dated 23rd October 2026. The appeal decision is also available on AppealBase. The short quotation from Inspector K Mee is Planning Inspectorate material reproduced under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
0 Comments