A PURBECK farm site owner has applied to run an unusual set of activities – including occasional small-scale music festivals.

The application, from Mr Mark Bartlett, seeks to officially recognise some of the activities already taking place at Valley Farm, Middle Road, Lytchett Matravers.

It asks Dorset Council for a Lawful Development Certificate for making and repair of horse-drawn vehicles, the sale of bric-a-brac and collectables, storage of assorted items including vehicles and portakabins, hobby farming and music festivals.

The application claims that the activities have been carried on at the site for more than ten years and, by definition, have now become lawful.

Site owner Mr Bartlett, from Danecourt Road, Poole says he has used the site for more than ten years for trading bric a brac and collectables and for repairing traditional horse-drawn carts, shepherd’s huts and waggons. He says the uses started, with permission, before he owned part of the site and have continued since he bought some of the land. He had previously lived at another address in the road.

In a statement to the council he says: “My family have always been traders, and throughout the time I lived at Beaconfield I was actively trading what people would generally call bric-abrac and collectables. This included old cartwheels, pots and pans, parts of old wagons, kettles, milk churns, enamel signs, and all sorts of architectural fixtures and fittings, such as old window frames and doors. I had a log cabin in the garden of Beaconfield where I stored the smaller items, and this provided me with a small workshop and somewhere to work when the weather was bad. I was using the garden for the repair of traditional carts and wagons.”

Mr Bartlett says when the site changed hands in January 2011 he continued the activities he had already started on the farm site with the permission of the previous lessees and the new owner and then, in August 2013, bought some of the site.

Throughout the period he said he has added various storage buildings, a tea cabin, a music studio and a tree house.

He says the first festival was held in 2011 with a Temporary Event Notice from Purbeck District Council, with the festivals continuing every year since then and a permanent toilet block being added to the site.

Comments on the application, Dorset Council reference 2022/02911, can be made until June 8th.

Illustration – Aerial view of the site – courtesy Mark Bartlett