A MOBILE home at Hobby Farm, Whitchurch Canonicorum, is to be granted permanent use.

Dorset Council has agreed an application from Mr Tom Ray via agents Symonds and Sampson for the Bluntshay Lane equestrian worker’s home.

Approval was first given in January 2017 for a temporary essential worker’s home on the site after an agricultural consultant argued there was a need for a worker to live on the site. That temporary, three-year, consent has now ended.

Agents say Mr Ray now wants to make the situation permanent. They say he lives in a bungalow adjacent to the farm, but not within sight or sound of the equestrian business, while the two-bedroom mobile home is directly adjacent to the stabling and yards. The agents say there is no request to replace the home and that it cannot be seen from outside the property.

The business has 18 stables plus a tack room and outbuildings as well as an outdoor schooling area to the east.

Char Valley parish council raised no objection to the application and there were five letters in support of the application.