Plans to demolish an unlawful barn which has been blocking a Forest of Dean road decades and build a new commercial workshop near the site have been withdrawn.

Chance Malone wanted permission from Forest of Dean District Council to go ahead with the works at Hanover Green Road which is off the Ledbury Road in Redmarley.

An attempt by Gloucestershire County Council last year to stop up the historic road was rejected at Cheltenham Magistrates’ Courts on October 16, last year.

The county council, which is the highway authority and is subject to a duty to assert and protect public interests to enjoy the highway and keep it free from obstruction, had made the application to extinguish public rights at the request of Mr Malone.

In finding that the route was necessary for public use, magistrates accepted it was being used by the public and would be used more if the unlawful obstructions were cleared.

County Highways are now taking enforcement action and require the removal of the barn from the current location.

And a planning application was submitted to Forest of Dean District Council in July requesting permission to demolish the structure and build a commercial workshop elsewhere on the site.

The planning documents claim the site has been used continuously as a workshop to repair caravans for the last 20 years.

However, this was disputed by objectors and planning officers questioned the lack of evidence to back up the claims.

Planning officer Roland Close said he was told by the applicant’s son that he had no audited accounts, tax returns, vehicle registration certificates of the motorhomes he said he bought, worked-on and sold.

“In my professional view, the evidence submitted to support the now claimed general industrial and storage is, at best, sparse,” he said to the applicant’s agent.

“I have read the neighbour representation in full and I have read your submissions in full including the statutory declaration made by Andrew Malone.

“I have now come to the conclusion that on the basis of the evidence before me I cannot conclude that on the balance of probability the planning unit you have outlined has a lawful mixed use for general industrial and storage purposes as you have claimed on behalf of your client.

“In my professional opinion, the proposed development represents new build employment related development in the open countryside contrary to the provisions of the development plan.

“And the proposed development would intensify the use of an existing vehicular access with severely sub-standard visibility splays causing a significant risk to highway safety.

“There is a fundamental objection to the proposed new development. This application was submitted without any pre-application discussions whatsoever and our protocol as to how we process applications in such circumstances is clear.

“I am of the view that this application, that I regard as fundamentally unacceptable, cannot in some way be made acceptable by way of a minor revision or the submission of a minor amount of additional information that does not require reconsultation.”

He said it may be the applicants could apply for a certificate of lawful development for a mixed use for the purposes of agriculture and the siting of a shipping container.

Planning consultant Oliver Rider said, “You have given us only 24 hours to make a decision on whether to withdraw the current application or proceed to a formal decision,” he said.

“Clearly, that is not enough time for us to properly review and digest the information that we have been provided and formulate any sort of response. We therefore wish to withdraw the current application at this time... to digest the comments, information and inaccuracies which have come into the planning portal and respond as appropriate.”