A log cabin in Exmoor National Park remained subject to an agricultural occupancy condition despite being built about 6.6 metres from its approved position and using a different cabin kit.
The owners argued that the differences meant the 2011 permission had never been implemented. If that argument succeeded, its occupancy condition would not control the dwelling.
Inspector Paul Dignan disagreed. Although the drawings and completed building were measurably different, the changes were not materially different in planning terms. The permission had been implemented, and the agricultural tie remained effective.
What happened at Marshwood?
The appeal concerns Marshwood, Exton, Dulverton, Somerset TA22 9LD, within Exmoor National Park.
An application for an agricultural worker’s log home was made in 2008. Work began in December 2008, while the application remained undetermined, and the dwelling was substantially completed by April 2010. Decking followed in 2011.
Planning permission 6/15/08/102 was eventually granted in July 2011, subject to 14 conditions. Condition 5 restricted occupation to the qualifying agricultural or forestry worker, with the specified provision for a widow or widower and resident dependants.
A separate garage received retrospective permission in July 2012. The later lawful-development-certificate application, 6/15/24/002, was made on 26th June 2024 and refused on 16th September 2024.
The Inspector dismissed appeal APP/F9498/X/25/3360778 on 10th September 2026.
The argument: a different building meant a different legal position
The owners’ argument was not simply that the occupancy condition should be removed because it was no longer needed.
They said the dwelling actually erected was materially different from the one permitted in 2011. On that basis, the permission had never been implemented and its conditions did not govern the as-built dwelling.
Instead, the earlier unauthorised building could, they argued, have become immune from enforcement under the historic four-year time limit for operational development. That would support a lawful-development certificate without the agricultural restriction.
This was an argument about the legal history of a development begun and substantially completed many years ago. It would be wrong simply to substitute today’s general ten-year enforcement period for the historic rules relevant to those events.
As our lawful development certificate guide explains, an existing-use or development certificate is decided on law and evidence, not on whether the proposal is attractive on its planning merits.
What differed from the approved plans?
The differences were real. The cabin had shifted position, a different model and kit had been used, and there were changes to dimensions, windows, doors, the base, porch and decking.
The measured diagonal difference between corresponding south-west corners was about 6.6 metres. The approved and as-built footprints overlapped by just under 27%.
Those figures are striking, but neither provides a statutory test for whether a permission has been implemented. The Inspector had to assess their planning significance in the actual setting.
Some alleged differences also depended on assumptions that the approved plans did not clearly establish. In particular, the plans did not provide a reliable local datum from which the claimed difference in the building’s level could be demonstrated.
Why a 6.6m shift was not decisive
The Inspector acknowledged that a shift of this order could be material in many situations. Indeed, smaller changes had been treated as material in other cases.
At Marshwood, however, the cabin remained in broadly the same part of the site. Its move took it further from the farmyard to the west, and the Inspector found no important planning consequence arising from the altered siting.
In this particular setting, the difference would have been difficult to identify without an accurate survey. The raw distance did not translate into a materially different relationship with the surroundings.
That is the point readers should take from the decision. A numerical deviation may be significant where it changes overlooking, proximity to a boundary, landscape effects or another planning constraint. The same number is not automatically decisive in every setting.
The Inspector’s conclusion was about this plot and this permission. It was not a general tolerance allowing buildings to move 6.6 metres from their approved position.
The building had to be considered as a whole
The Inspector considered authorities including Handoll and Suddick v Warner & Goodman & Street, Sage [2003] UKHL 22 and Hillside Parks Ltd v Snowdonia National Park Authority [2022] UKSC 30.
The relevant question was whether the development actually carried out was materially different from that authorised. It was not enough merely to demonstrate that the finished building and the drawings were not identical.
The decision assessed siting, scale, design, appearance and character, looking at the differences both individually and cumulatively.
The replacement cabin model was somewhat larger, but the difference was not readily apparent without measurement. Its accommodation was almost identical, which was relevant because the dwelling’s justification was to meet an agricultural worker’s need.
The window and door changes had little external significance in the setting. The small porch and decking did not materially change the building’s character, and the low-lying position was relevant to the assessment of its base and appearance.
Taken together, those findings led the Inspector to conclude that the planning permission had been implemented. The deviations did not produce a materially different development in planning terms.
The occupancy condition and the Section 106 agreement were separate
The planning history also included a Section 106 obligation tying the dwelling to agricultural land. That obligation was discharged in September 2015.
But discharging that agreement did not discharge Condition 5. A planning obligation and a planning condition are different controls.
Because the 2011 permission had been implemented, its agricultural occupancy condition remained effective. The owners had not established the unrestricted lawful position sought through the certificate application.
The later garage permission did not alter that conclusion. It addressed a separate development and did not determine whether the dwelling had implemented its own permission.
The deception discussion was not the basis of the decision
There is a further observation at paragraph 14 about deliberate deception. The Inspector considered, hypothetically, what the position might be if a developer deliberately pursued immunity while misleading an authority into believing that conditions on a permission were being complied with.
That was not a finding that the appellants had acted deceptively. The decision records that they appeared to have regarded the dwelling as authorised until the issue was raised more recently.
Nor was concealment the reason the appeal failed. The decisive conclusion was that the as-built dwelling had implemented the 2011 permission.
It would therefore be inaccurate to describe this as an appeal dismissed because the owners concealed an unauthorised cabin.
Planning Geek analysis: differences on paper are only the start
This is a useful reminder to examine the planning consequences of deviations, rather than relying on a survey overlay or a percentage alone.
For anyone buying, selling or advising on an agricultural worker’s dwelling, the complete permission, conditions, approved plans and later decisions need to be read together. A discharged land-tie agreement is not evidence that every occupancy restriction has gone.
The decision also cuts both ways. It does not give developers permission to depart from approved plans without checking, and it does not mean every difference makes the whole permission unimplemented.
The question remains one of fact and degree, assessed against the permission and the actual development. Here, that assessment left the agricultural tie firmly in place.
Read the full Exmoor appeal decision
Download the Marshwood appeal decision: APP/F9498/X/25/3360778. The full decision includes the Inspector’s treatment of the cited authorities and the separate, hypothetical discussion of deception.
This article reports the decision and Planning Geek’s practical analysis. It is not a certificate of lawfulness or advice on the status of another property.
Report prepared: 11th September 2026
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