New Dog Grooming Business Approved at Planning Committee

Planning success

We are pleased to bring news that planning approval has been granted by Stafford Borough Council, following a planning committee for a new dog grooming business located in Yarnfield, Staffordshire.

Dog Grooming

World pet markets are growing at a dramatic rate, and the UK is no exception witnessing higher than ever pet ownership and spending. Let’s face it, people are crazy about their animals and in particular, dogs. There is a huge market surrounding the pet industry and statistics from the PFMA annual report 2016 show that “The UK spends 10 billion on their dogs”.

In the UK 24% of the population own a dog and our clients are no different. They share a love of owning a dog with the rest of UK. As dog owners themselves, our clients understand the potential for a new business within the pet industry and it provides them with the opportunity to give something back to support local animal charities in the area too.

The Design Proposal

Our clients have lived in their five-bedroomed detached family home with large enclosed grounds in village of Yarnfield in the Staffordshire countryside for many years. Their property is located along a quiet country road on the outskirts of the village and is set well back from the roadside. The mature foliage secludes the property and nestles into its well-established site, with ample space between neighbouring properties.

Our clients recognised that to start a dog grooming business from their property they needed to make changes to the existing space for it to be successful. They decided to utilise an existing room that was infrequently used by the family for their new company. However, they felt that the space was undersized for their business needs and appointed Croft Architecture to create a design solution for a small reception and waiting area. 

In addition to their commercial requirements the family wanted to replace their old sunroom on the opposite side of the property with a slightly larger, modern, light filled sun room to better connect them to their garden space.

The property has a generous amount of garden space to the front and the side, allowing the small development to take full advantage of the land available with no visual impact on the neighbouring properties or street scene.

Why would the application be refused?

Although the plans for the family’s new business and sunroom bared no physical impact on the street scene, there were concerns from the Highways Department regarding the new proposed driveway onto the main road. Highways were worried that the new driveway had poor visibility and the potential for speeding traffic.

We revised the drawings to remove the proposed new site access in its entirety and to continue using the existing driveway.

Following the amendments Environmental Health, the Highways Department and the Biodiversity officer, were all happy with the revised proposals, however, the neighbouring home owners raised several objections. Their main concerns were amidst fears that the noise of barking would disturb their peace, dog fowling would become problematic and fears were raised about extra traffic on the rural roads.

Although the submission had the full support of the planning officer and there was no planning reason for this to be called in to committee. The number of neighbouring objections against the scheme led to a planning refusal and the scheme was recommended to go to planning committee.

Success for our clients at planning committee

Our architectural team were successful at planning committee by providing the evidence that the concerns of the residents were satisfied by the specialist consultees or they were without a planning foundation.

When operational the dog grooming business will be run on an appointment only basis, limited to two clients in attendance at any one given time. Therefore, the Borough Council and the Highways Authority have no concerns over the level of traffic and there are no proposed changes to access to the property.

The committee and case officer concluded also concluded that the proposal was acceptable in terms of its use, design, scale, appearance, character, access and ecological response to the change of use and that there was no justifiable reason why the application should be refused.

Following the discussions led by Croft Architectures’ Architect, Anthony Walker, the planning committee approved our design proposal.

This represents a victory for a small business. While we have helped our clients to win an approval at the committee meeting, the application had full planning officer support. This business enabling project was small scale generally, yet very important for our client, who welcomes a local authority that supports local enterprise and business growth.

Needless to say, our clients are delighted with the outcome of the planning committee and they can now take the next steps to begin establishing their new business.

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