It is regretted that the practice has lost an appeal against an enforcement notice in the New Forest. The notice related to a new fence that had been erected in a field behind the established pattern of frontage development in a rural village and extending back from the main village street. It was situated behind a listed building on the road frontage.
The key issue was a ground c) appeal as to whether the fence was within the ‘curtilage’ of the listed building and, therefore, whether or not it needed planning permission. If not within the curtilage the fence was permitted development.
In reaching his decision the Inspector concluded the field was now part of the curtilage because the appellant had removed the dividing fence between it and the garden to the listed building, and because the appellant was mowing the grass. The Inspector accepted that there was “no physical means of enclosure or other obvious boundary to differentiate between the area of mown lawn and the longer grassland, only a change in mowing regime.”
Such decisions are often matters of fine judgement, but it is interesting to note that the curtilage of a building can be extended simply by cutting the grass and that the boundary of a curtilage may vary from one year until the next depending only on how well and how frequently the grass has been cut.