Landmatters Permaculture Project

On Thursday the 23rd August Landmatters Co-operative received the decision on their planning appeal which was heard during a four day public inquiry in Cornworthy Village Hall in July. The planning inspector allowed the appeal and granted planning permission for a permaculture holding integrating agriculture, forestry, education, ancillary rural enterprises and residential use subject to the ‘low-impact’ criteria set out in their planning application.

The Inspector Alan Woolnough states: “Landmatters have already achieved low levels of energy consumption, implemented wide-ranging recycling initiatives and established an ecological footprint per household far smaller than the regional average, as established by the analysis undertaken by 4th World Ecological Design”. He concludes: “the advancement of permaculture and sustainable ways of living facilitated by this project has sufficient potential value to outweigh the limited harm to other interests”.

Rooh Star who represented the group at the recent public inquiry says: “We are delighted that we have been given the opportunity to continue to develop our Permaculture holding. Preparing for the inquiry has taken a huge amount of our energy, so we are now looking forward to being able to devote our time to what we are really passionate about – working our land, living sustainably and exploring solutions to climate change and peak oil.”

Alan Woolnough states in his appeal decision that “Permaculture is now an internationally recognised means of sustainable agriculture and the subject of much academic study in recent years. Moreover, the direction of travel of emerging national policy towards ever more sustainable approaches to development and the need to address the problem of climate change is readily apparent”. He adds: “In such a context, I find there to be considerable ecological, educational and cultural benefits in further exploring permaculture.”

The landmark decision received by Landmatters this week shows that there is a need for local policies relating to such “low impact developments” as already adopted by other forward thinking councils. Landmatters has contributed to the recent public consultation on the new Local Development Framework policies, which will form the basis for all future planning decisions in the area until at least 2016. The consultation on the Development Control Core Policies and Affordable Housing policies closed on 24th August, but there is still time to comment on the policies relating to rural areas. Landmatters urges people to get involved because, as Rooh Star points out “this is possibly the last opportunity before 2016 to support our call for a policy to allow sustainable, land-based developments in the countryside while ensuring that they remain low impact.”

Rooh Star concludes: “We couldn’t have achieved what we have done without the help of our many supporters to whom we would like to say a huge thank you!” People who are interested to find out more are invited to look at the website www.landmatters.org.uk for information on upcoming events such as the Community Supported Farming (CSF) volunteer days on every second Saturday of the month, a rocket stove course from the 21-24 September and a tree seed gathering day on 25th October.

At the beginning of 2006 Landmatters applied for a 5 year temporary planning permission for change of use of land from purely agricultural to a permaculture holding integrating agriculture, forestry, education and ancillary rural enterprises, with a sustainable community housed in temporary low-impact structures.
The detailed application was turned down at the end of April by South Hams District Council, (without the vast majority of the planning committee even being aware of our application) based on the outdated Local Plan from 1996. Since then an enforcement notice, requiring to cease residential use of the land and to remove all associated structures was also served.
We appealed against these decisions with the Planning Inspectorate and ask to be granted 5 years temporary permission to demonstrate our commitment and the sustainability of our proposed project.

The public inquiry regarding the appeal took place from the 17th-19th July in Cornworthy Parish Hall.