Couple told they can only sell their £500k house to agricultural worker

A Telford couple have been told by a planning inspector that they can only sell their five-bedroom, £500,000 home to an agricultural worker.

The sale particulars state that the house is a five bedroom, three bathroom “unique family home set within approximately three acres of paddocks and woodland.”

The owners had appealed against Telford & Wrekin Council over the continued application of a 1990 planning condition restricting the sale of the property in Donnington Wood.

“There is no evidence that the property is too large to be suitable for the purpose of an agricultural or forestry worker’s dwelling or that its size would render it undesirable to the target occupiers,” a planning inspector wrote this week.

The inspector found that there was “no compelling evidence that the dwelling is no longer needed to meet the needs of agricultural/forestry workers employed in the area”.

“It is therefore necessary for the disputed condition to be retained to ensure that adequate accommodation is available in the locality for agricultural/forestry workers.”

Oliver and Rosanna Wadlow had told the inspector that the “original agricultural need has long since ceased”.

It had been “comprehensively marketed for over 12 months with ‘no legitimate application or demand for the dwelling by an eligible person identified”.

The couple had said that the council’s case “relies largely on technical objections to the marketing process and subjective interpretation of ‘local need’ rather than substantive evidence of agricultural demand”.

The inspector, N Robinson, visited Lodge Road on December 1 before making the decision on December 10.

They found that one potential buyer had their eligibility to buy the property approved by Telford & Wrekin Council.

The couple had challenged this decision and said they did not consider that the individual had met the criteria.

Council planners had insisted that it was its decision to make and not the property sellers’.

Millington’s Lodge is a detached, five-bedroom property set in around 3.11 acres of land, of which 1.92 acres is grassland and the remaining 1.19 acres is woodland.

But the inspector found that “an eligible person expressed an interest in the property”.

“Thus, it cannot be said that there was no interest in the property from eligible persons.”

Telford & Wrekin Council officials reported at an earlier stage in the process that should the property be purchased and occupied by someone who did not meet the agricultural condition, enforcement action would be against those individuals and not the current owners.