A residential curtilage appeal in Woking has failed after an Inspector ruled that land within a planning application’s red line was not necessarily part of the approved domestic garden. On 19th October 2026, Inspector Thomas Courtney dismissed appeal 6006780 concerning East House on Chobham Road, Knaphill.
The owner had sought retrospective changes through a Section 73 application affecting conditions on permission for two detached houses. The disputed land to the east had acquired domestic features including patio surfacing, artificial grass, altered access arrangements and entrance gates. The earlier permission had deliberately kept that area open.
Why does the residential curtilage question matter? The applicant argued that the original permission’s red line boundary covered the disputed land. The Inspector examined the original approved plans and the reason for the garden restriction, deciding that the application boundary and the residential garden boundary were not the same thing. I would be wary of assuming a red line grants a domestic garden use when the permission itself says otherwise.
A residential curtilage is not simply the red line site
The original development was permitted after an earlier appeal, and subsequent Section 73 permissions carried forward a condition preventing the residential curtilages extending beyond the lines on an approved landscaping plan. That plan showed a fence line separating the new houses from land that would remain paddock-like and open.
The appellant said the condition was unclear because the plan did not expressly mark a line labelled residential curtilage. It was argued that the only sufficiently identifiable boundary was the application red line, which included the land now brought into domestic use.
The Inspector rejected that reading. The earlier appeal decision had expressly distinguished the developed portion of the site from the area intended to remain open. The post-and-rail fence line on the landscaping drawing was intelligible in that context, even without a label spelling out the precise words.
A residential curtilage condition cannot be interpreted solely by picking one plan boundary out of context. Its wording, the approved layout, associated plans and the purpose the previous decision-maker sought to achieve all matter. Our earlier Chichester garden curtilage appeal report explores another distinction between ownership and the lawful extent of domestic land. The Inspector found this particular condition precise, reasonable and enforceable.
The land east of the fence might form part of the wider ownership or planning unit, but that did not put it inside the residential curtilage actually approved. These are different planning concepts with different implications for subsequent changes of use and operational development.
What was being regularised on the Green Belt site?
The application sought to retain more than an ordinary lawn. The Inspector described a substantial patio area, extensive artificial grass with goalposts, ornamental planting, a gravel drive, revised access and relocated gates and brick piers. These works and associated activities collectively gave the land a more domestic character.
The original permission was granted on the basis that housebuilding would take place on the previously developed part of the site, with the remainder continuing as open land. Bringing that open portion within the private garden changed the relationship between the houses and the surrounding countryside.
The Inspector considered both the spatial and the visual effects. Even in the absence of new houses on the disputed portion, permanent domestic surfacing, equipment and activity could erode openness and create a suburban appearance in a rural setting.
He found substantial harm to the Green Belt’s openness as well as damage to local landscape character. Additional planting would soften some views, but it could not undo the underlying conversion from retained open land to a formalised private garden.
Why grey belt arguments did not win permission
The appellant also relied on arguments about previously developed land and grey belt. The Inspector was not persuaded that the part of the appeal site in question was previously developed land merely because it lay within the original application’s red line. The land itself had been retained as undeveloped paddock.
Even assuming the definition could be met, the Inspector considered the harm to Green Belt openness too substantial for the relevant exception in national policy. He also accepted for the purposes of the case that the disputed land might reasonably be regarded as grey belt.
That did not resolve the appeal. The grey belt exception required several conditions to be met, including an evidenced unmet need for the kind of development proposed. Enlarging an existing home’s private garden did not establish that need. The proposal also undermined the intended separation between developed land and countryside.
Accordingly, the residential curtilage expansion remained inappropriate development in the Green Belt. The Inspector gave substantial weight to that harm and found no very special circumstances sufficient to justify the works and change being regularised.
Section 73 cannot quietly redefine what was approved
Section 73 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 provides a route to seek permission without compliance with particular conditions, but the resulting application still has to be assessed on its planning merits. A change to approved plans or curtilage restrictions is not automatically acceptable because an earlier permission exists.
This case is particularly useful where permissions have been varied repeatedly. The disputed restriction originated with an earlier Inspector and was carried forward into the permission now at issue. The appeal examined that history rather than treating the newest drawing in isolation.
The planning history also explains why apparent technical arguments about what a line represents can have real consequences. The condition was imposed precisely to keep the domestic part of the development from spreading into adjoining open Green Belt land.
Once the proposal was correctly characterised as an extension of the residential curtilage, the Inspector had to judge the resulting development and land use, including openness, design and very special circumstances. He did not simply decide whether the applicant had used the correct colour pen for a boundary.
The wider lesson for garden owners and developers
A residential curtilage may be narrower than the title ownership or red line application site. It may also be controlled by an express planning condition. Anyone buying a property with adjacent fields, paddocks or land beyond a permitted garden should establish the approved position before laying surfacing or extending domestic occupation.
For planning advisers, I would start with the original permission, plans and Inspector reasoning, then work forward through every Section 73 variation and condition discharge. Apparent inconsistencies need resolving before choosing a proposed development description or assuming a fallback exists.
This is a fact-specific Inspector decision rather than binding case law. The Planning Inspectorate case record identifies appeal 6006780. The decision is also available on AppealBase.
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