Temporary construction access fails to justify permanent South Downs farm road

A temporary construction access created under permitted development while a South Downs farmstead was refurbished has failed to provide a planning precedent for retaining a permanent road across the site.

Inspector Claire Coles dismissed appeal 6004640 at Scotlands Farm, Telegraph Hill, Fernhurst on 30th September 2026. The scheme sought permanent permission for an access broadly following the construction route, together with a three-bay garage.

The garage was broadly acceptable in landscape terms. The decisive problem was the access: the Inspector found it would cause substantial harm to the character, appearance and tranquillity of the South Downs National Park.

Temporary construction access was not a permanent precedent

The access had originally been formed under Schedule 2 Part 4 Class A of the GPDO to serve refurbishment works at the former farmstead. That distinction mattered.

Part 4 Class A permits temporary buildings, structures, works, plant and machinery where they are required temporarily in connection with, and for the duration of, operations on the land or adjoining land. The current GPDO wording then requires the Class A development to be removed when those operations have been carried out, with adjoining land reinstated as soon as reasonably practicable.

The appellant argued that the proposed permanent track was effectively the same route as the temporary construction access. In the Inspector’s words, “it only lasts for the duration of the construction period”. She also treated the wording as expressly preventing the temporary right from operating as a precedent for permanent development.

That is the practical core of the decision. A lawful temporary construction access can exist because a specific permitted development right authorises it for a limited purpose and period. That does not, by itself, establish that the same engineering works, route or pattern of vehicle movements would be acceptable as permanent development.

The Inspector also rejected the suggestion that there was convincing evidence of a historic track of comparable scale and permanence. Historic mapping and photographs were described as inconclusive, and the evidence was not enough to establish a lawful permanent access on the basis advanced.

Why the permanent access failed in the National Park

Scotlands Farm sits within the South Downs National Park, in a wooded and relatively tranquil landscape. The Inspector recorded dense woodland to the west and south, with more open views from the north and north-east and the Serpent Trail public right of way running nearby.

The permanent proposal was assessed as new development in that sensitive setting, not simply as a continuation of what had been acceptable during building works. The temporary construction access did not change that starting point.

The Inspector found that the construction track crossed land which had previously been undeveloped, had involved the loss of woodland and had brought vehicular movement into an enclosed area where movements appeared to have been limited. Planning Geek’s landscape character guide explains the wider role of landscape evidence in planning decisions.

Making the route permanent would therefore affect both landscape character and tranquillity. The proposed use of Fittleworth stone and a grassed central strip did not solve the underlying problem. Those details softened the appearance of the track, but did not remove the road or the permanent traffic from the landscape.

The appellant also pointed to benefits. Additional planting was proposed, and the new access would reduce the need to use an existing western access through a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The Inspector gave those matters weight, but noted that the SSSI access already existed, whereas the appeal scheme would introduce additional harm elsewhere in the National Park.

She concluded that the access would have a significant effect on the character, appearance and tranquillity of the National Park and would conflict with the South Downs Local Plan and national policy for protected landscapes.

Garage acceptable, but the curtilage swap needed a mechanism

The three-bay garage fared considerably better. It would sit close to existing outbuildings, use materials reflecting the rural surroundings and remain subordinate to the main threshing barn. Its lower ground level, surrounding woodland and existing buildings would also limit wider views.

On landscape grounds, the Inspector found no significant effect on the South Downs National Park from the garage itself.

The complication was its relationship with the residential curtilage. The proposal envisaged taking land outside the existing residential curtilage into it for the garage, while giving up other land already within the residential curtilage.

Planning Geek’s curtilage guide explains why this is not simply a matter of drawing a different ownership line. Curtilage is a planning concept concerned with the land closely associated with and serving a building, and the consequences can matter for permitted development and other controls.

No mechanism had been provided to secure the proposed exchange. The Inspector was not satisfied that a condition was appropriate because it would require the appellant to surrender existing residential land. By contrast, she said a “planning obligation would entail the appellant offering to give up the land”.

There was also an enforceability concern about how the land being surrendered would be prevented from continuing to be used as garden land. Without an acceptable mechanism, the Inspector treated the garage as falling outside the residential curtilage, despite finding its landscape effects acceptable.

The point is a useful reminder that a scheme which depends on changing the practical extent of residential land may require more than a planning condition. The legal mechanism needs to match what is actually being promised.

BNG baseline dispute was not decided

The decision also records a dispute about the biodiversity net gain baseline. The calculations before the Inspector appeared not to use the habitat baseline from before the temporary access road was constructed under permitted development.

That issue needs careful handling. The Inspector did not decide that the appellant’s BNG baseline was legally wrong. Because she had already found the overall development unacceptable, she expressly did not consider the baseline calculations further.

Current BNG guidance reflects anti-degradation provisions in Schedule 7A to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. In qualifying circumstances, where activities carried out after 25th August 2023 in connection with another planning permission reduce onsite biodiversity value, the statutory baseline can be taken from immediately before those activities.

But appeal 6004640 does not establish whether those provisions applied to this particular temporary construction access, whether every statutory condition was satisfied, or what precise baseline should have been used. It records the dispute and leaves it unresolved.

For applicants, the safer practical lesson is evidential. Where temporary works, site clearance or construction access may alter habitats before a later application is made, ecological evidence from before those works can become important. Planning Geek’s BNG guide covers the current statutory regime in more detail.

Temporary permission and permanent permission answer different questions

The decision is particularly useful because the physical route already existed when the permanent application was considered. That fact did not turn the planning balance in the appellant’s favour.

Part 4 Class A answers a narrow question: whether temporary works required for authorised operations can proceed without a separate express planning permission. A later application to retain those works permanently asks a different question, judged against the development plan, national policy and the permanent effects of the development.

That distinction can matter well beyond farm accesses. Temporary compounds, haul roads, hardstandings and other construction works may all be lawful for the duration of a project without acquiring any automatic right to remain afterwards.

Anyone hoping to keep a temporary construction access should therefore assess the permanent proposal on its own merits before relying on the fact that the route has already been built or used. In a protected landscape, the permanent visual effect, traffic, tranquillity and restoration expectations may carry substantial weight.

The lesson is straightforward: a temporary construction access may be lawful under permitted development for a construction project, but any proposal to keep those works permanently still has to succeed on its own planning merits.