DIYWEEK.net

The owner of a garden centre has told diyweek.net about his ongoing dispute with the local council that has lasted nearly 20 years.
Owner of Hare Hatch Sheeplands garden centre, near Reading, Rob Scott, has told of how Wokingham Borough Council has issued an enforcement notice on the site after years of battles over planning applications and alleged unauthorised expansion.

The centre operates on greenbelt land and the Council are claiming that the changes Mr Scott has made to the site should not have been allowed. An appeal hearing against the latest enforcement notice is due to take place early next year; two previous hearings were planned for this year but never took place.

He said he has been left "in limbo", but it is still business as usual at the garden centre.

Since opening as a retail business in 2003, Mr Scott has taken on various concessions, including a pet food shop and a farm shop, and planning permission was sought to extend existing on-site buildings in order to incorporate the extra parts of the business.

"At the same time we opened a coffee shop and applied for planning permission for it," Mr Scott continued. "But the application was turned down so we appealed it with the help of fantastic customer support. We then won the appeal in 2008."

The planning inspector said at the time that Sheeplands should be allowed to grow in order to compete with other businesses. Mr Scott then constructed a master plan to develop the site, but the process to get this approved slowed. "From 2008 until 2011, we had meetings and [the council] amended the plans to suit what they wanted on the site and we eventually came up with something that we thought ticked all the boxes. This was in April 2011."

The process was stalled until December 2011, when the Council turned down the application. Mr Scott subsequently found out that the garden centre company across the road had suggested to the Council that it should take enforcement action over the changes to the site. Mr Scott then lodged an appeal against this notice last year and after various hurdles, the appeal hearing is now due to take place early next year.

"We've been working with Wokingham Borough Council for nearly 20 years," he said. "The enforcement officer was a regular visitor to our site. There was no way that they didn't know what was going on throughout this time. All the changes that we made they knew about and they had complete visibility of the site. They said we cannot allow you to be a garden centre.

"It's unbelievably messy. It's my life and that of a hundred or so other people who depend on it for their income. Our customers are devastated and they are incensed, insisting that Wokingham are not listening to what people want."

Mr Scott told diyweek.net that his customers have been supporting him by writing letters to the Council, their local MPs and the planning inspector and attending public meetings. He said they are "absolutely livid" and they "cannot understand why [the Council] is digging its heels in".

As for staff at Sheeplands, Mr Scott said they understand that it is a "very real possibility" that they could lose their jobs as the business will shut if it does not win the appeal. "They've faced this uncertainty for five years," he said. "The staff are totally loyal; it's for them as much as myself that I'm carrying on with this."