Planning consultant for the New Forest National Park Authority

A separate LPA, not a overlay on NFDC

The New Forest National Park Authority decides planning applications inside the Park. Lyndhurst, Brockenhurst, Beaulieu, Burley, Sway, Ashurst, parts of Lymington’s hinterland and a slice of south-west Wiltshire and east Dorset all sit under Park policies. New Forest District Council decides the towns and parishes outside that boundary. Two authorities, two local plans, two sets of design and landscape tests. We confirm the boundary from the address before we quote.

Park applications are slower to forgive a generic statement. The statutory National Park purposes — conserving landscape, wildlife and cultural heritage, and promoting understanding and enjoyment — sit above ordinary development-plan balancing in a way district cases do not. Replacement dwellings, modest extensions, commoning-related development, and very limited new housing each have their own tests. Dark skies, grazing, ancient woodland and the Forest’s recreational pressure on European sites all appear in officer reports.

We prepare the application, draft a statement that cites the Park Local Plan rather than NFDC’s, lodge it, and deal with the Authority’s case officer. If you have already been refused, we will say whether an appeal has a realistic prospect or whether a smaller, better-evidenced scheme is the cheaper route.

Site visits matter more here than in a suburban street. We travel from Bournemouth. Neighbouring decision-makers on the edge of the Park include NFDC, Dorset Council and Wiltshire Council.

What usually decides Park cases

• Park Local Plan policies, not New Forest District Council’s plan
• Landscape, Forest character and visual impact of even small extensions
• Replacement dwellings, floorspace limits and design quality
• Commoning, grazing and rural exception arguments where they genuinely apply
• Habitat regulations, recreational pressure and nutrient issues
• Appeals where the Authority has over-reached on a householder scheme

Services we run in this authority

• Householder applications for extensions, lofts, outbuildings and annexes
• Full applications for new dwellings and conversions
• Change of use and lawful development certificates
• Prior approval, including larger home extensions and rural conversions where the GPDO applies
• Appeals, including enforcement and non-determination