Council wants NHS Nightingale centre pulled down

It was fine when it was a chicken shed

A double planning appeal is underway as the owners of a well-known Devon business park fight enforcement action being taken against it.

The Carter family, which owns Greendale Business Park, has lodged a pair of appeals with the government’s Planning Inspectorate against enforcement notices lodged by East Devon District Council.

The council had pushed for the Carter family to remove a building being used as an NHS vaccination centre with a drive-thru provision as well as another building it describes as a steelworks.

It wrote to the business park in April, demanding that use of the NHS building was halted immediately and work undertaken to demolish and remove it, while the steelworks was also to be removed, alongside any hardstanding or foundations.

Both buildings have been put up where a former chicken shed stood, and the council had previously allowed it to be potentially used as a shop.

“[But] , a new larger structure was erected in the same place (which the permitted development rights notification did not permit) and has been used as an NHS Vaccination Centre with an additional ‘Drive Thru’ provision, despite a much larger NHS building having been constructed during the pandemic elsewhere on Greendale Business Park,” the council’s enforcement notice states.

East Devon says both buildings are essentially in open countryside because they are not within the boundary where development is permitted, according to the council’s local plan.

“In the absence of policies within the East Devon Local Plan that expressly support this proposal and in the absence of a robust justification and evidence of need, the proposed [NHS vaccination centre] development represents unjustified and unsustainable development in the countryside,” the council’s enforcement notice states.

“The location is remote from villages and towns within the district and its nature as a drive-thru vaccination centre means that people are likely to access the site via private car, in conflict with policies… which seek to encourage promoting and securing sustainable modes of travel and transport.”

The council added that it believed the environmental harm would “outweigh the social benefits that would be derived from the provision of a permanent building for the NHS to roll out their vaccination programme”.

On the appeal form, the Carters’ agent, Dan Trundle, of Blackbox Planning, states: “The site and surrounding area has a complex planning history.

“The case is linked to two enforcement notices on adjacent buildings with different considerations.

“The appellants’ appeal case is made on several grounds, legal submissions are made which would benefit from being made orally, and the evidence submitted in support of the appeal would benefit from being given on oath and/or testing through cross-examination.

“The submissions of evidence and topic areas that they concern would not be able to be appropriately submitted by way of written representations or hearing procedure without having a prejudicial effect on the appellants’ case.”

However, East Devon said in relation to the NHS vaccination centre, which was the subject of a failed planning application in 2023, that Greendale had launched an appeal against that decision, but the Planning Inspectorate had upheld the council’s reasons for refusal.