Councillors reject a ‘suspected planned attempt’ to turn part of protected Green Belt into a caravan park “like Skegness”

The barn on land north of 200 Hopwell Road, Draycott, which is the subject of the appeal. Image from Google.

By Eddie Bisknell – Local Democracy Reporting Service

Councillors have rejected a suspected planned attempt to turn part of the protected Derbyshire Green Belt into a caravan park “like Skegness”.

At an Erewash Borough Council meeting this month, councillors unanimously rejected plans from private landowner Mr Nightingale to construct hardstandings for three caravans, a track and a bin store in a field off Hopwell Road, a mile north of Draycott, close to the A52.

The application from Mr Nightingale details that the caravans would be able to stay on the site for a total of 28 days per year – either in one go or in separate stays.

Council officers said the proposed concrete platforms – 10 metres by 12 metres – were “wholly disproportionate” and that the idea of parking a static caravan on a site for 28 days was an “irrational proposition”.

This comes nearly three years after Mr Nightingale won an appeal to keep a large metal barn he had built without planning permission on the site, which he had been ordered to demolish.

The barn had been used to house a planned helicopter flight simulator renovation project, which was later sold, with a future use to support a smallholding for animals he also did not yet own.

Councillors had said the barn, to support non-existent sheep, was a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”, but in 2023 a Government inspector allowed Mr Nightingale to keep it.

Objections had been submitted to the council by residents in the neighbouring Woodlands Park estate 70 metres to the south, fearing development in the open countryside and an overall change of use from agricultural to residential.

Christopher Barton, who has lived next to the site for nine years, said he had never previously lodged any planning objections, but said the construction of polytunnels, tracks, hardstanding and the barn had caused a cumulative impact.

He said: “The land use is gradually beeing changed and this could set a precedent for the future.”

Louise Russell, another neighbour, said: “There has been a clear incremental shift from agricultural use. What concerns me most is what may be allowed in the future.

“There is the potential for this field to become brownfield land, creating the basis for a change of use of the land through a ratchet effect, risking changing the use of this open Green Belt field.

“The landscape is being changed bit by bit until nothing is left. This is a change of use by accumulation and you need to look at the whole context, not in isolation.”

She dubbed the scheme “disengenuous and disproportionate”.

Steve Birkinshaw, the council’s head of planning, said Mr Nightingale had made “bold assertions” that stripping turf from the land to lay hardstanding was “appropriate in the Green Belt”.

Mr Birkinshaw said: “If it was, he could do the same to the whole field and replace it with gravel, and that cannot be the case.”

He said it was up to elected members to decide if the application was truly for the creation of concrete slabs, sewerage and electricity connections purely for use by caravans for up to 28 days a year.

Cllr Kevin Miller said: “This would represent further erosion of the Green Belt. It will look like Skegness and we don’t want that.”

Cllr Tim Scott said as a parish councillor he had backed the applicant over the barn, when advised it was for a small holding, but said this development would be “detrimental to the Green Belt” which could “pave the way for future use as a brownfield site”.

Cllr Margaret Griffiths said the development was “simply wrong” while Cllr Harrison Broadhurst, chair of the meeting, said: “What is there now is appropriate but there is a line and this feels like it is on the wrong side of that line.”