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Submit plansI own four acres of green belt land running alongside a bridle path from my house in Epping Forest. I have exclusive vehicular access rights on the deeds for the land. My house is an endof- terrace and, although it is pleasant enough living at the end of a country lane, we have really noisy neighbours. I work from home, writing and making stained glass and mosaic pieces so I wondered if I could lodge an application to build a live/work unit. Can I circumvent the green belt law? I’ve heard councils are more sympathetic to the arts…
You’re right that live/work can be greeted more sympathetically than just a dwelling. Unfortunately, though, a new dwelling in the green belt, live/work or otherwise, directly contradicts greenbelt policy. There are only a few exceptions to this – converting an existing building, replacing an existing dwelling, or building a new dwelling that’s needed to serve an agricultural business. The prospects for success in this case sound remote, if not non-existent. Occasionally people have
put up, say, a stables building and then, a few years later, successfully applied to convert it. That said, in the greenbelt, even the size and design of stables will be tightly controlled and might preclude a building that could be converted at a later date.
