The owners of a former Ripon village pub have successfully overturned an enforcement notice requiring them to restore the building to use as a public house.
The Planning Inspectorate has upheld an appeal brought by Mark and Benjamin Fitton, from the Half Moon Inn, in Sharow, near Ripon, and quashed the notice served by North Yorkshire Council.
The council had issued the enforcement notice in 2024, alleging an unauthorised change of use from a public house to a house.
It required the owners to cease residential use and reinstate the primary use as a pub, with three months to comply.
However, Inspector Chris Baxter concluded that the residential use of the entire building had continued for at least four years before the notice was issued, meaning it was immune from enforcement action.
Under planning law, councils cannot take enforcement action against a change of use to a single dwellinghouse if it has been continuous for four years prior to the notice being served.
In reaching his decision, the inspector considered ten sworn statutory declarations from the appellants and family members, as well as photographs and written statements.
The declarations described how the building had been used as a sole residence since November 2019, with daily living activities taking place throughout the property.
Mr Baxter said in his conclusion: “From the evidence before me, I am satisfied on the balance of probability that the public house use ceased before 25 April 2020 and that since then the whole of the appeal property has been used as a single dwelling for a continuous period of four years.”
Commenting on the appeal decision, Mark Fitton told the Local Democracy Reporting Service:
“After decades of business failure, it was obvious that the Half Moon would never reopen as a pub.
“The council has wasted a great deal of public money, spending years fighting a battle that it was never going to win.”
Planning applications to change the use of the pub into a home have been refused on several occasions in recent years.
A new application has recently been filed with the council in the wake of the appeal decision.
A community group has been campaigning for the pub to be reopened since 2021, with a survey of local residents revealing widespread support for the proposal.
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