A luxury holiday business at St John’s-in-the Vale – which shot to fame when Romeo Beckham stayed there with his girlfriend – has lost a planning battle.
Family-run In The Vale fell foul of national park planning rules by siting on its land a beautifully-made hand-crafted shepherd’s hut on a far corner of a field offering panoramic views of the valley and Blencathra.
With prices starting at £390 and marketed as the holiday site’s “most private place”, it also included a nearby hot tub and external seating.
However, it did not have planning permission to go where it was put.
And now a national planning inspector has given the site three months to remove the holiday let and any associated development and reinstate the land it was on to how it was.
At Christmas 2022, Mr Beckham’s youngest son, Romeo, and then girlfriend Mia Regan, stayed at the site – documenting their winter break on Instagram and rocketing the site to national prominence.
But after being tipped off by members of the public that the top-of-the-range shepherd’s hut did not have planning permission for where it was, planners at the national park authority served an “enforcement notice” less than a month later in January 2023.
Wendy Birkett, for In The Vale, appealed it with the matter then going to the Bristol-based Planning Inspectorate for resolution.
But the inspector has dismissed the appeal and upheld the national park authority’s original enforcement action bringing an end to the matter which has gone on since January last year.
The ruling means that the business must stop any use of the hut as a holiday let; remove the structure from the land and get rid of all associated items. This includes stone paths and hard-standing, timber decking, the hot tub, seating, fire pit, lighting, and any associated piping and cables.
A report by the inspector stated that the shepherd’s hut had been placed away from the existing group of four others to offer a ‘degree of isolation’ from other units and help provide the business with a “different tourist accommodation offer”.
The Birketts were given planning permission by the national park for five huts in 2021, and four were put in the correct place. The contentious fifth was put on an area of the picturesque field not covered by the planning permission.
One argument put forward by the appellants was that the position of the hut better protected it from potential flooding, but the inspector was “not persuaded”.
The Birketts enjoyed “some support locally”, with the family praised for their diversification of the traditional farm.
Last week it was announced that Mr Beckham and Miss Regan, both 21, had separated after five years together.
In The Vale was approached for a comment by the Reminder.
