Farm cafe plans refused over green belt concerns

A farm's plan to convert two shipping containers into a café has been refused over concerns about its impact on green belt land.

The application to Doncaster Council by Manor Farm in Conisbrough said the enterprise would "help to protect the family's farming heritage" by offering an additional avenue of income.

The proposal included indoor space for café tables, a small car park with 10 spaces and a WC, accessed by a pre-existing site entrance.

However, the council ruled that the application would cause harm to green belt land "by reason of its inappropriateness" and any economic benefits the cafe might provide would only be "modest".

Manor Farm has been "at the centre of a family-run business for generations", according to the application, and has livestock as well as selling produce such as hay, eggs, vegetables and root crops.

The proposal for a café was "purely a speculative venture" to find out whether it might result in a worthwhile supplement to existing farming income.

Additional traffic to the site would be "insignificant", the proposal added, and visual impact of the structure "practically inconsequential" in relation to the farm's location on Denbrook Lane.

Planning officers acknowledged the containers, which would be clad in redwood boarding, would be smaller in size and footprint than surrounding farm buildings.

However they said the plans would cause "additional harm to the openness of the green belt", citing "its prominence in views from Clifton Hill and from the wider countryside due to local topography".

"Despite the proposal respecting amenity, and the small economic benefits of the proposed business, these minor benefits are not considered to clearly outweigh the harm to the green belt by reason of inappropriateness and harm to openness, and no 'very special circumstances' exist," they added.

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