The coronavirus pandemic has affected our lives in many ways over the last two years, amongst which has been the unprecedented rise in pet ownership, with there now being 12 million dogs in the UK. With that, there has come a continued increase in demand for dog fields which are rented out, often on an exclusive basis, as a safe and secure place to exercise dogs whose owners, or indeed the dogs themselves, are put off from doing so in more open and populated places for any number of reasons, including the many distractions associated with those, safety concerns, or because the dog is still in the early days of their training.
Against that background, we are delighted to introduce this month’s guest blog by Todd, who has his nose to the ground on such matters and has very kindly offered to lead us through some of the key planning considerations for dog fields, and the potential implications for failing to abide by these, pro-bonio. So, in (at least some of) his own words, here are Todd’s thoughts.…
It would be easy to think that using a field, area of woodland or other piece of unused or underused land for exercising dogs on a commercial basis would not be an activity that would require planning permission. That would though be barking up the wrong tree, as this constitutes a material change of use and planning permission will therefore always be required. If you have been advised otherwise, you have been sold a pup.
In planning for a dog field, please paws for thought and give particular attention to the following factors:
- access and car parking – given that many dog fields are by their very nature located in more rural areas (with many originating as farm diversification projects), safe access and adequate car parking (as well as barking) facilities will need to be provided;
- structures – dog fields vary considerably in the facilities associated with them, with some having only secure fencing and others including things such as play equipment and shelters for human beans supervising their dogs, and the siting, scale and design of these will require careful consideration to ensure that they don’t have any adverse visual impact, particularly in areas of natural heritage or landscape value. Any such impact can of course also be mitigated with landscape planting, with some of my favourites being dog woods and dog roses;
- lighting – although not provided in all dog fields, some form of lighting can maximise the pet-tential use of your field during the winter months. It is though important that such lighting does not cause light pollution in rural areas, or impact on any neighbouring properties;
- noise – whilst most dogs will be happy to play quietly in the field, some may get over excited and bark whilst chasing their ball (or the local small furry wildlife), so again, consideration needs to be given to the proximity of your field to residential properties and the impact that barking (or indeed human beans shouting on any badly behaved dog with poor recall (as if…)) could have on neighbouring residential amenity, something you definitely don’t want to be hounded by your neighbours about; and
- operational management plan – your planning authority may want to know your intended hours of operation, how many people and/or dogs can use the field at any one time, and how you will manage waste, so it is advisable to prepare an operational management plan to submit with your application, which will give the planners an assurance that the field will be well managed, and that you won’t be taking a paws-off approach to this.
If you have already created a dog field without securing planning permission before reading this, the planning authority is unlikely to let sleeping dogs lie if they were to become aware of this and you could end up in the doghouse with enforcement action being taken against you. In such circumstances, I would strongly recommend employing a reputable planning consultancy, such as Aurora Planning Limited, and not relying on any junk yard dog planning consultant, who could make a dog’s breakfast of the job. In the worst-case scenario, this could result in you requiring input from a legal beagle, particularly if the decision could be Border line.
Thanks for reading!
Todd (Border terrier), dog-tired, after a long day working like a dog.
All views are of course the author’s own. ?
