PLANS to turn a St Martin field into a horse livery with a dog daycare’s outdoor venue have been approved – on condition that the equine business stays in place.
Proposals to develop the site into a dog daycare have previously been rejected and have provoked a backlash from nearby residents, who raised concerns about the level of noise coming from the dogs.
Under the new proposal, owners would not come to the site and instead the dogs would be transferred from the Barkley Club’s main facility in St Helier “for a morning and afternoon session, in a dedicated Barkley Club van”. This would be limited to the hours of 10am to 3.30pm, with numbers capped at 20 dogs at once.
The site’s owner, Letitia Lapidus, runs the Barkley Club Dog Daycare on Halkett Place in town as well as a horse livery.
She was previously forced to stop using the site in St Martin for a canine daycare, after a retrospective attempt to formalise the site’s use was rejected due to concerns over a loss of “good quality agricultural land”.
St Martin parish secretary Charles Alluto said the parish “still remains deeply concerned” about the noise impact.
Local resident Veronica Mileti asked: “Would you want to live in the close vicinity of potentially 100 dogs a week?”
Planning Committee member Deputy Tom Coles recalled how on the site visit, the committee was greeted by a neighbour’s large barking dog which was “not happy to see us”, in contrast with a site which he said had a natural noise barrier.
Constable Mark Labey added: “I think the dog that met us that day fitted more in an equestrian setting. You could have put a saddle on it.”
Committee chair Deputy Alex Curtis said the noise and traffic were acceptable under the Bridging Island Plan, but that conditions “must be watertight” for the site to remain primarily a horse livery with ancilliary use as a canine facility.
The planning committee voted to approve the change of use with a condition linking the dog and horse businesses – so if the equine livery were to close, the canine business would too. They also approved a barn with space for four horses, replacing a derelict one.
