Complaint Letter

To: Joanne Lancaster

CEO HDC

St Mary's St,

Huntingdon PE29 3TN

Dear Ms Lancaster,

The Community Group “Open the Crown and Cushion” (OTCC) would like to officially complain about the manner in which HDC Planning Enforcement have handled requests by the communities of Great and Little Gransden, to act in an enforcement capacity, in the case of the Crown and Cushion Public House being closed and subsequently being used by the owners solely for residential purposes, contrary to its settled planning designation of Sui Generis Public House.

The Public House, Grade II Listed and listed as an Asset of Community Value, was closed in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic and has not taken any of the opportunities available to reopen for business. Numerous attempts have been made to open dialogue with the landlords, about how the community could help them to reopen the Public House and create a thriving business. The current landlords have refused to engage with the community or our elected leaders (Parish, District and County Councillors and our local MP). The Landlords have requested that our Community Group do not contact them further and this is being respected.

Various individuals in the community, the OTCC committee, CAMRA (NFP Org fighting to save UK Public Houses) and our elected leaders have petitioned HDC Planning to investigate the use of the Public House as a dwelling and to date there has been no transparent response to these petitions. HDC planning officers have only said that they believe no breach of planning requirements has taken place and that they are monitoring the situation. This is despite the clear and obvious intentions of the owners for the Public House to remain closed and to use it as a Dwelling House, contrary to it’s assigned planning category of Sui Generis Public House with ancillary residential use.

To date, HDC Planning Enforcement have not given the community any clear indication of how they intend to proceed, what criteria they are using to assess the facts and degree of the current use of the Public House and how long they intend to allow the current situation to continue.

The Community have the right to understand why HDC Planning Enforcement are not acting to ensure that this Asset of Community Value is not lost to from the community forever. The current owners of the property seem to be under the impression that they are permitted to occupy the property for purely residential purposes and the community can only assume that HDC have given them reason to believe this. As the information that has been provided to the community by HDC indicates this is clearly not the case, it seems cruel to allow them to continue on their current course of action, particularly beginning a costly building project on the site. By failing to deal with this situation transparently HDC is causing significant tension and anger in the village.

This perceived lack of action by HDC Planning Enforcement is in direct conflict with HDC planning policy LP 22. LP 22 is intended to provide communities with the ability to ensure that local services (specifically including Public Houses) remain accessible to the community. Community action groups are actively encouraged. The community has

1. Held an open forum meeting on 28March2022 attended by over 150 people.

2. Nominated a committee

3. Actively partitioned HDC for action

4. Held a public survey with 359 responses, 241 of which were verified by name, showing 93.6%

support for re-opening the Public House.

Through this activity the OTCC Community Group has proven the community is extremely concerned that the Crown and Cushion Public House is in grave danger of being lost to the community. The current owners have made it clear both verbally and on social media that they are not interested in the rights and concerns of the community and are not interested in running a Public House. They have not met the conditions of LP 22 that would allow a change of use, but they are actively pursuing a course that would lead to change of use to a Dwelling House by way of a Lawful Development Certificate. Unless HDC take enforcement action within 4 years of sole residential use they will be unable to refuse such a request.

It has also been noted that there is now evidence the property is being prepared for construction of an annex/ancillary accommodation for which planning approval was granted under application 19/01893/FUL. Construction fencing has been erected to separate the rear of the property. The granting of this application included condition 4 per below -

4. Condition.

The annexe hereby permitted shall not be occupied at any time other than for purposes ancillary to the residential use as part of the Crown and Cushion, West Street, Great Gransden and shall at no time be used as an independent unit of residential accommodation.

4. Reason.

To ensure the additional accommodation remains ancillary to the main dwelling on the site in the interests of the privacy and amenities of the future occupiers of the existing dwelling and

proposed annexe, as an unrelated, non-ancillary use would be harmful to the privacy and

amenities of the occupiers of both the annexe and the existing dwelling.

The owners of the Public House have publicly stated (on social media) that they have no intention to open the Public House in the future and have also stated on the planning application that the annex/ancillary accommodation will be used to house an elderly mother. These statements appear to contravene this condition as without the “active use” as a Public House, so no ancillary residential use would be permitted.

Although the owners may have claimed to HDC inspectors that they intend to reopen the Public House, Planning Inspectorate case Cleveland Arms para 9 refers to “Short periods of time in which a primary use is temporarily interrupted by another use would not necessarily result in a material change of use”. However, by using the criteria of time and statements from the owners regarding their intentions, in Planning Inspectorate case Cleveland Arms paragraph 12 the Inspectorate concluded that “on the balance of probability, and as a matter of fact and degree, that the use of the building has changed from a PH to a residential dwelling house.”

In summary, this complaint is centred around the perceived lack of action by HDC Planning Enforcement to enforce the requirements of residential use as ANCILLARY to the designated planning use of Sui Generis Public House. Planning Inspectorate case Cleveland Arms para 11 refers to specifically "Active".  This would mean that the Public House should be in “active use” for its stated category to allow any residential use. The current and stated ongoing intention of the current owners of the Public House and ACV is that sole “active use” is residential.

The Open the Crown and Cushion community group would like

1. A full and transparent understanding of what HDC is doing to resolve the issue

2. What time frame the community should expect to see ongoing assessments?

3. When can the community expect enforcement action to ensure this Public House is not lost by default as an important ACV?

Thank you

Committee – Open the Crown and Cushion community group.

Openthecrownandcushion@gmail.com