A LONG-running planning saga over the use of a 1.5 acre piece of land at Thelwall has finally been settled.
Warrington Borough Council planners have approved a plan for a permanent home for an essential farmworker caring for alpacas at Woodlands Alpaca Farm, in Stockport Road, Thelwall.
The dwelling – a mobile home – was already in place but only had temporary planning consent for a period of three years.
Now planners have approved an application by the Egerton Trust for the property to be a permanent one
Planning consent for a field shelter for up to 12 alpacas was originally granted in 2014. Later an application for a second shelter for the breeding of alpacas was also granted.
But in 2020 the borough council refused an application for the essential farmworker’s residence on the grounds that it was inappropriate development in the Green Belt.
The following year, however, it was granted on appeal – and since then the site has been removed from the Green Belt with the publication of the Warrington Local Plan.
Planning officers agreed to the permission being made permanent after hearing that the dwelling had been in place for three years without issue or complaint.
They suggested the development would not be inappropriate even if the site was still in the Green Belt.
The dwelling was suitable and sustainable for an urban fringe development and would cause no harm to residential or visual amenity.
There had been no objections from nearby residents.
