You say that one half was gifted to you by a neighbour. Get a witness statement from the previous owner that says "I blah blah previously owned parcel of land described here in detail from date to date and for this whole period of time this same said parcel of land was wholy and entirely used for the purpose of a domestic use and has never been used for commercial, argricultural or blah blah purposes and was sold to blah on the date as domestic land knowing that a building was to be errected etc etc etc" This gives a set period of time in the history of the land whereby it was domestic land, be carefull not to say garden specifically or the council could say that it must remain a garden that you cannot build on.
Such witness statements are best gained from the witness "previous owner" by a solicitor especially if the witness is older in years infirm or not altogether at home up top otherwise it could back fire on you later. If the previous owner has died, that in itself is not a problem it easy enough to track down the next living family relative who you can get a statement from too.
Seek pro advice.
www.gardenlaw.co.uk forum is all about this sort of thing, seek advice there to. I have in the past and they are great but they can be rather rude too at times..... but they are fantasic at sorting things out.
Do you have a neighbour who works for the local authority, this may be where your problem actually is!!!!! It may be this local authority neighbour abusing a position at work to stop you doing what your planning on doing..... This has happened to me, once exposed the chappy lost his job and a pension!! Explore who your neighbours are to the full to find out who's who and what they do, know thigh enemy. I think you have a nearby rotten apple.
Explore old paper based title deeds, explore and download neighbour titles from land registry to find out the names and addresses of those that own land around you...... who are they, what do they do / work for.
The local record office will have deeds and conveyances for your plot and all those around you going back many many decades, spend a few hours at the record office looking through them.
On a slightly sour note, you should always apply for planning permission to demolish "whatever" inc trees and hedges" before you apply to build. This is a common mistake.
Get the two parcels of land joined together as a single title, one parcel of land apposed to two. Simple and inexpensive to do.
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