Barn couple are accused of abusing planning system

But Raymond and Rita Robinson have amassed wide local support in their bid to turn a former derelict barn in Skipton Road into their new home.

For several years Mr and Mrs Robinson have been trying to get planning permission to turn Churn Milk Hall Laithe into a house. They have been repeatedly turned down by Bradford Council and lost two appeals to the Department of the Environment.

Mrs Robinson keeps sheep and horses on land at the site and the couple want to live there to protect livestock and buildings from burglars and vandals.

She told the Gazette that because of repeated attacks on the stables, their former insurance company had refused to cover the property.

Previous planning applications to turn the barn into a house were turned down partly because of the state of the building. Planning officials declared it would need a substantial rebuild, rather than a simple conversion.

After a subsequent appeal was turned down Mr and Mrs Robinson, of Rivadale View, Ilkley, were granted permission to rebuild the barn as a barn, building up the walls and putting on a new roof.

Mrs Robinson said: "I have got fed up with people saying how nice it looks with a roof on and asking 'when are you going to move in'?"

A new application to convert the barn into a house will be debated by the Keighley area planning panel today. The application is accompanied by 14 letters and a 68-signature petition in support of the plan, and three letters of objection.

But officials are still against it and in a report to the panel claim the barn's rebuild was nothing more than a ruse to

circumvent the planning system.

Officers carried out a site visit while the work was going on. They said that heads and sills were being inserted into the stonework in anticipation of a later residential conversion.

But Mrs Robinson said her husband only put in sills and heads where there were existing doors and windows as the building was previously partly lived in.

The report says: "If the planning authority is to permit the conversion of buildings which are erected in the guise of being agricultural buildings but which in reality are being erected for future residential use, the doors are opened to significant abuse of the planning system."

According to officers, Mr and Mrs Robinson had no intention of using the building as a barn and have recommended refusal on the grounds it would be an inappropriate development in the Green Belt.

Mrs Robinson said: "When I tell people that planning officers are recommending refusal they can't believe it. I don't know what else we can do to satisfy them."

Mrs Robinson said when permission to rebuild the barn was applied for, planning officials wanted the couple to give up their right to apply to convert the building into a house - but they refused.