A FARMER has been told he cannot go ahead with plans to add a shed to his business without council approval because the land lies on a historic battle site.

Plans for a new agricultural shed at Whitecraig Farm raised objections from East Lothian Council officials because it would be on the Battle of Pinkie site and also on a scheduled monument.

Agents for the farmer notified the local authority of the proposal to erect the building, which would be 12 metres by 12 metres and 4.6 metres high, behind farm buildings already on the site. However, council officers have responded that no building can go ahead without their approval, ruling it will need planning permission.

The decision comes a month after elected councillors overturned a decision by officers to refuse planning permission for a 10-metre high grain store on a farm next to Traprain Law, near Haddington, which is listed as a Special Landscape Area.

The Local Review Body, which heard an appeal against the refusal, ruled that farm buildings were “part of East Lothian’s landscape”.

Councillor Lachlan Bruce, chairperson of the body, said at the time: “I think part of East Lothian’s landscape is that it is worked in land and lived in land.

“It is not as if we are putting something alien into the landscape.”

Raising an objection to the proposals for Whitecraig Farm, officers said that the shed was not a permitted development because of its location and cannot go ahead without planning permission.

And they said permission would need to be sought from Historic Environment Scotland before a planning application could go in.

The site is protected because of a series of Roman camps and prehistoric settlements on the land.

The Battle of Pinkie took place on September 10, 1547, and was the last pitched battle between Scotland and England prior to the union.