An estate at Portinscale near Keswick has lost a planning battle with the national park authority after carrying out unauthorised work in a Lake District woodland.
The Lingholm Private Trust Ltd created a large hard surface on land that it owns and manages just off the C2057 road at Ullock Moss as part of its licensed tree felling operations.
The area had been used as a wood stand, to make it simpler to store felled trees before being collected and taken away.
But the national park stepped in and said that the hard surface created required planning permission and served an enforcement notice on the trust in June last year alleging unauthorised development including the felling of trees.
The trust lodged an appeal but an inspector at the Bristol-based Planning Inspectorate has now dismissed it.
Government-appointed inspector Paul Freer visited the site in April and also held a hearing in June.
His decision means the unauthorised development has to be removed within 10 months to put matters right.
Agents acting for the trust argued that the work was allowed without planning permission and that the national park’s enforcement notice contained errors.
They said there had been a private way and area of hard standing on the site for a considerable time, evidenced by historic maps dating back to 1945.
It also said the hard-standing constituted the maintenance of a private way, which was allowed without planning permission for the purposes of forestry.
But the national park provided images culled from Google Streetview showing the site before and after.
Planners said the extent and character of the hard standing that had been created vastly outweighed that which could reasonably be considered maintenance of a private way.
While accepting some of the trust’s points and agreeing that the enforcement notice served by the national park needed to be corrected and have variations made to it, overall the inspector disagreed and found that the work had introduced built development into an area of woodland.
The inspector’s view was that it could not be considered as maintenance of a private way and planning permission was needed.
The inspector’s report went before a meeting of the national park’s development control committee at its meeting on August 2.
It follows long-standing problems in the area and around nearby Catbells of traffic gridlock, poor parking and access issues.
