Maria Ferguson Planning

02/11/2026

Energy bills will be one less thing for my client to worry about after Bradford Council’s decision to approve his wind turbine near Bingley this week 💨🍃💨

17/10/2026

Making sure it actually happened after all that 😅

26/09/2026

Success this month for a client who runs children’s homes - planning permission granted for the change of use of a house in Sedgefield for a small C2 home. It’s extremely sad that these still need planning permission at all, and sadder still that they attract objections. Children’s homes aren’t what they used to be they’re small scale, heavily staffed and managed, and probably the kids are better parented than many children in regular family environments. All children deserve a safe, secure home ❤️🫶❤️ think twice before objecting to them ❤️🫶❤️

10/09/2026

Padel Court planning permission granted on appeal - Crowther Industrial Estate, Washington 💪💪💪💪🎾🏓🎾🏓🎾🏓

Despite the enormous rise in demand for padel courts, planning is slow to keep up and Councils continue to refuse these. The planning can raise difficult issues, in areas like this notably the protection of ‘employment’ (industrial) land. In this case the Inspector agreed with us that there were circumstances here that justified the change of use of the building.

Thank you Ronbar Factors Ltd for your valued instructions ☺️

02/09/2026

I love that sometimes I’m involved with brand new businesses. And even more so when they’re given absolutely fabulous names. Planning permissions secured for dog groomers ‘What the Fluff’ in North Shields today 🐶🐾🐕

Photo courtesy of Eric and Pippa ❤️

01/09/2026

Very relieved to say that the Yorkshire Dales National Park Planning Committee unanimously voted in favour of granting planning permission for the 100th Scott Trial to take place in the Yorkshire Dales next month.

The Scott Trial is widely considered the toughest and most prestigious one-day motorcycle trial in the world. There were some bumps along the way but I hope to continue to work with the Authority and the Richmond Motor Club to secure the future of this event for the next 100 years (although obviously I won’t live to see them all)!

10/06/2026

A lovely testimonial from my client on this::
“ I just wanted to say thank you again. Your experience, knowledge, professionalism and hard work has proved invaluable to me. I truly believe without you there is no way I would’ve achieved the fantastic result we did”.

🏆

04/06/2026

It's a successful week for certificates of lawfulness. This chap was renting out the first floor of his house, and the planning authority told him this required planning permission and that they wouldn't grant it. The case we made here was that the change of use took place more than 4 years ago and so was now immune (also, in the alternative, that no material change had been made...too long a story for a page)....anyway, it was approved and he doesn't need to evict his tenant. Link to decision below, but this is what they said:

The evidence submitted creates a convincing profile that 41 Bramley Garth has been in operation as two separate apartments for a continuous period of at least 4 years prior to the date the application was submitted. The evidence is considered to be sufficiently precise and unambiguous, and no evidence has come to light which contradicts it. Therefore, it is considered that sufficient evidence exists and has been supplied to demonstrate, on the balance of probability, that the lawful use of 41 Bramley Garth is as two separate apartments. A Certificate of Lawful Existing Use is therefore granted for the use of 41 Bramley Garth as two separate apartments.

chrome-extensio://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://planningaccess.york.gov.uk/online-applications/files/E6694D487A8DF6CEA58D1EE449765FCB/pdf/26_00646_CLU--2902384.pdf

03/06/2026

Sometimes it’s easy to say when a householder development is ‘permitted development’ and doesn’t need planning permission….sometimes it’s not.

These poor clients have waited 15 months (!!) for an inspector to adjudicate on their outbuilding and today they agreed with us - the stable and garage does not need planning permission - certificate of lawfulness granted.

Issues that came into play on this:

-was the proposed use ‘incidental’ to the use of the house;
-which part of the site is the ‘ground level’ for the purposes of determining the height of the building; and
-were the ground works to level the site ‘engineering works’ in their own right requiring planning permission.

This is why when you ring me up and ask ‘do I need planning permission for…:’ I can’t always give you an immediate answer 🤷🏼‍♀️

02/06/2026

It was really fabulous to finally obtain planning permission for the variation of conditions that were limiting this business’s growth. The original planning application was extremely contentious and in order to be able to run weddings at the venue, the lovely family who run this business alongside their farm accepted extremely restrictive limitations. Those are now all gone, with some sensible safeguards for local residents, and the business is now able to diversify from solely weddings to all sorts of lovely celebrations throughout the year ❤️❤️❤️

The Tweddles said:

“After nearly a year of wranglings Maria was a constant support throughout this process….which finally paid off with a positive result in our favour!! Maria did an excellent job & we would highly recommend….”

Love is in the air 👏🏻

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