Car wash - Car sales/Planning permission

[dave828]

Hi all,
I currently run a hand car wash on what used to be a petrol station, we've been operating since 2009. For the past two years during the autumn/winter months we've started selling vehicles for the extra income as business slows down.

I recently got a letter from the council stating that we'd breached our planning permission/unauthorised change of use by storing and selling vehicles from the premises and have 30 days to remove them from site.

Currently we have planning permission for a car wash which is classed as a Sui Generis. Having done some digging, it would seem that vehicle sales are also classed as a Sui generis? Would this mean that i'm ok to continue trading or would need to apply for a different planning permission?
I've been in touch with the council and have heard nothing since

[robinessex]

Sui Generis means unique, can't be easily clasified. I would have thought cars salse COULD be easily classified.

[POORCARDEALER]

My car sales garage was Sui Generali

[Gruber]

OP: If the Council judges there to have been a material change of use, you'll need planning permission.

So the question here is whether there has been a material change of use, or whether actually you can argue that the car sales operation is ancillary to the ongoing main carwash use. That's a "fact and degree" judgement (unless you're blatantly in breach of a condition on your existing consent).

[surveyor]

car sales are sui genius. It's not a classification, but a unique permission for each application.

I'd be surprised if a site suitable for a car wash is not suitable for a car pitch, but you would need to apply.

[Gruber]

I'd also just add that, in my experience, it's fairly unusual for a Council's planning enforcement team to take action without prompting. So someone has probably complained to them. It'd be worth phoning the enforcement officer to get a bit of background on why they've decided to take action here. If there is a (perceived or real) noise issue (for example) then you'd need to deal with that in your planning application.

[Undirection]

OP, thread drift slightly but what's running a car wash like?

[V8mate]

Gruber said:

I'd also just add that, in my experience, it's fairly unusual for a Council's planning enforcement team to take action without prompting. So someone has probably complained to them. It'd be worth phoning the enforcement officer to get a bit of background on why they've decided to take action here. If there is a (perceived or real) noise issue (for example) then you'd need to deal with that in your planning application.

More likely another local car dealer making mischief?

[Gruber]

V8mate said:

Gruber said:

I'd also just add that, in my experience, it's fairly unusual for a Council's planning enforcement team to take action without prompting. So someone has probably complained to them. It'd be worth phoning the enforcement officer to get a bit of background on why they've decided to take action here. If there is a (perceived or real) noise issue (for example) then you'd need to deal with that in your planning application.

More likely another local car dealer making mischief?

Maybe. But even if it was, the Council should (if acting properly) still have been pursuaded that it was in the public interest to bring enforcement action. So whatever complaint the hypothetical competitor raised ought still to have been a good planning point to prompt the Council to wade in. Unless, of course, said local car dealer happens to be the Mayor/Leader/Councillor's brother...

[Frimley111R]

I remember talking to a new car wash owner in Bagshot near me who opened up as a 'Carwash Cafe'. He said the local council turned up and basically told him he couldn't be both, it was either car wash or cafe! It was just a car wash with a small crappy waiting room, hardly starbucks!

[POORCARDEALER]

I applied to turn my retail garage to a convenience store, which planning declined on highway issues/increased traffic...quite ridiculous in that we could park on the main road outside the showroom (no yellow lines), customers could stop etc etcbut not if we were a shop...we argued it was already a retail business but they were not playing ball....

So it was declined on saftey grounds, however if in the dim distant past it had been a shop they would have struggled to decline it, even if it was "unsafe"

[surveyor]

POORCARDEALER said:

I applied to turn my retail garage to a convenience store, which planning declined on highway issues/increased traffic...quite ridiculous in that we could park on the main road outside the showroom (no yellow lines), customers could stop etc etcbut not if we were a shop...we argued it was already a retail business but they were not playing ball....

So it was declined on saftey grounds, however if in the dim distant past it had been a shop they would have struggled to decline it, even if it was "unsafe"

Your unique. I've done quite a bit of Valuation work over the years for a finance provider that provides stock finance. I think virtually every trader had planning permission for flats! (as an aside it made bk all difference to the valuation as there is no guarantee that it would be renewed on expiry).

[dave828]

There is a 'home trader' that lives not too far from where we are, he has been pestering us to use our land to park his cars on for next to nothing. He came in the other day and said "where have all your cars gone? have the council told you to move them?" put two & two together....

Either ways, my solicitor is dealing with it and ...if they decline my application then that's that.

[Undirection]

dave828 said:

There is a 'home trader' that lives not too far from where we are, he has been pestering us to use our land to park his cars on for next to nothing. He came in the other day and said "where have all your cars gone? have the council told you to move them?" put two & two together....

Either ways, my solicitor is dealing with it and ...if they decline my application then that's that.

Not sure I understand much of that? Do you mean a home trader parked his cars on your land?

[Wombat3]

Undirection said:

dave828 said:

There is a 'home trader' that lives not too far from where we are, he has been pestering us to use our land to park his cars on for next to nothing. He came in the other day and said "where have all your cars gone? have the council told you to move them?" put two & two together....

Either ways, my solicitor is dealing with it and ...if they decline my application then that's that.

Not sure I understand much of that? Do you mean a home trader parked his cars on your land?

No, I think he means the tt shopped him to the council.....