Rural commercial premises near Fletching given permission to expand

On Thursday (June 23), Wealden District Council’s Planning Committee North approved an application to extend an industrial building at Flitteridge Farm in Daleham Lane, near Fletching.

The application is intended to serve an existing tenant, an events company which required more space.

While the scheme had been recommended for approval, a number of committee members had concerns about the extension resulting in more activity at the site in future.

Kay Moss (Ind), who said: “I appreciate these are local businesses and we have to support that, but the ultimate question is: does the harm outweigh the good? I believe in this instance it does

“The uncertainties of what could happen there in the future by giving this permission outweighs the benefit to sustaining a business there as it is at present.”

The site already had planning permission for a ‘storage and distribution’ use. This would allow it to do much of what was of concern to councillors, such as taking large delivery vehicles on site.

Other committee members took the view that the planning process could impose some further restrictions on how the site was used.

After further debate the committee approved the proposals. However it imposed several conditions intended to limit any future impact.

These included a prohibition on subdividing the expanded building, a restriction on hours of operation and a more unusual condition tying planning permission to the current tenant.

This tenant, the committee heard from the applicant, had a relatively small impact with only one full time member of staff spending time on the site.